Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
Audiobook14 hours
Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
Written by Christopher Knowlton
Narrated by John McLain
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
A revolutionary new appraisal of the Old West and the America it made
The open range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades.
Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We venture from the Texas Panhandle to the Dakota Badlands to the Chicago stockyards. We meet a diverse array of players-from the expert cowboy Teddy Blue to the failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. Knowlton shows us how they and others like them could achieve so many outsized feats: killing millions of bison in a decade, building the first opera house on the open range, driving cattle by the thousand, and much more. Cattle Kingdom is a revelatory new view of the Old West.
The open range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades.
Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today. The tale takes us from dust-choked cattle drives to the unlikely splendors of boomtowns like Abilene, Kansas, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. We venture from the Texas Panhandle to the Dakota Badlands to the Chicago stockyards. We meet a diverse array of players-from the expert cowboy Teddy Blue to the failed rancher and future president Teddy Roosevelt. Knowlton shows us how they and others like them could achieve so many outsized feats: killing millions of bison in a decade, building the first opera house on the open range, driving cattle by the thousand, and much more. Cattle Kingdom is a revelatory new view of the Old West.
Author
Christopher Knowlton
Christopher Knowlton is the author of Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression. He is a former staff writer and London bureau chief for Fortune magazine. He also spent fifteen years in the investment business. His previous book was Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West.
Related to Cattle Kingdom
Related audiobooks
American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle over the Greatest Fortune in the American West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World's Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Time It Never Rained Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Earth Is All That Lasts: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dead Run: The Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt of the Modern American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cowboys, Mountain Men, and Grizzly Bears: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of the Wild West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Goodbye to a River: A Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Old Man and the Boy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death on the River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure: Theodore Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Texas Rising: The Epic True Story of the Lone Star Republic and the Rise of the Texas Rangers, 1836-1846 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boone: A Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related podcast episodes
Ep. 1: Steven Rinella 100% found this document usefulLevel 4-Day 4 Cowboys 0% found this document usefulUnearthing the Buffalo Dystopia: The Catastrophe of Overhunting and the Medicine Lodge Treaty Consequences 0% found this document usefulHazards on the Trail Part II: Stampedes, Jayhawkers, & Indian Troubles 0% found this document usefulThe Buffalo Herds of 1872 0% found this document usefulA Long and Treacherous Journey 0% found this document usefulRise of Equus 0% found this document usefulThe Jones and Plummer Trail 0% found this document useful88: “The Last Frontier:” The Purchase of Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush 0% found this document usefulThe Call of the Wild 0% found this document usefulThe Battle of Ape Canyon | Case File 285 0% found this document usefulLove the Wild: Moose / Alces alces 0% found this document usefulThe Great Southern Buffalo Herd of 1872 0% found this document usefulCryptid Roundup Pt 2: Wet n' Wild Summer Fun S.1 Ep. 42 0% found this document usefulBlue Man of Spring Creek 0% found this document usefulHike Your Way Through Fall: Our Top Picks 0% found this document usefulThe Yucca Man and More... 0% found this document usefulGold & The Overland Trail 0% found this document useful
Related articles
Picturing Quanah Parker Wild WestArticle
Picturing Quanah Parker
Aug 31, 2021
3 min readThe Big Die-up Wild WestArticle
The Big Die-up
Jan 22, 2019
10 min readSnow Shift Game & Fish WestArticle
Snow Shift
Nov 15, 2022
8 min readPlease, Consider the Beaver Literary HubArticle
Please, Consider the Beaver
Aug 1, 2018
8 min readFor The Love Of Quail Garden & GunArticle
For The Love Of Quail
Sep 12, 2019
10 min readIt Happened One Night Adirondack LifeArticle
It Happened One Night
Mar 30, 2023
5 min readLast-hurrah Birds Game & Fish WestArticle
Last-hurrah Birds
Jan 9, 2024
5 min readDeadly Horseplay In The Dakotas Wild WestArticle
Deadly Horseplay In The Dakotas
Jul 28, 2020
10 min readOpen Range Closure Wild WestArticle
Open Range Closure
Jan 22, 2019
The Old West that readers and the editors of Wild West love thankfully lives on despite suggestions in some circles it should be buried and forgotten. Among other entities and people that have kept alive that era in American history are Western magaz
3 min readThe Klondike! Wild WestArticle
The Klondike!
May 23, 2023
10 min readWhere the Cattalo Roamed Texas Highways MagazineArticle
Where the Cattalo Roamed
Mar 21, 2023
4 min readA Day To Dream About Horse & HoundArticle
A Day To Dream About
Feb 20, 2020
5 min readThe LAST FRONTIER Motorcycle Mojo MagazineArticle
The LAST FRONTIER
Apr 25, 2023
As they trekked through the Alaskan wilderness of the late 1800s, John Burroughs, a companion of naturalist John Muir wrote, “Things are on a new scale.” It was a moment of supreme understatement. Alaska could fit 19 of the lower states within its bo
7 min readThe Big Freeze Choice MagazineArticle
The Big Freeze
Nov 25, 2022
8 min readParadise On The Prairie Game & Fish WestArticle
Paradise On The Prairie
Nov 14, 2023
10 min readLearning To Live With Musk Oxen High Country NewsArticle
Learning To Live With Musk Oxen
Feb 1, 2024
14 min readWill Climate Change Force This Alaska Village To Relocate? The Christian Science MonitorArticle
Will Climate Change Force This Alaska Village To Relocate?
Jul 1, 2019
To the people of Quinhagak, Alaska, climate change is not a scenario far off in the future, but something they live with every day.
11 min readHow A Nation Desperate For Wealth Fell Prey To ‘Gold Fever’ The Christian Science MonitorArticle
How A Nation Desperate For Wealth Fell Prey To ‘Gold Fever’
May 12, 2021
Brian Castner deftly recounts the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush in vivid detail, pointing out that many would-be prospectors came totally unprepared.
3 min readThe Bright Dawn Of A New Season Shooting Times & CountryArticle
The Bright Dawn Of A New Season
Sep 14, 2022
5 min readThe Weight of Gold American HistoryArticle
The Weight of Gold
Jul 23, 2019
11 min readWomen Make Their Mark Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and ChildrenArticle
Women Make Their Mark
Mar 1, 2022
4 min readStars Of The County Down Horse & HoundArticle
Stars Of The County Down
Dec 1, 2022
6 min readTexas Variety Motorcycle Mojo MagazineArticle
Texas Variety
May 8, 2019
7 min read7 Fascinating Figures of the Klondike Gold Rush Wild WestArticle
7 Fascinating Figures of the Klondike Gold Rush
May 23, 2023
8 min readFive Men, Six Days, And 34 Miles Across The Sierra Nevada Journal of Alta CaliforniaArticle
Five Men, Six Days, And 34 Miles Across The Sierra Nevada
Oct 4, 2022
20 min readWyatt Earp’s Wrangles in Wrangell Wild WestArticle
Wyatt Earp’s Wrangles in Wrangell
May 23, 2023
4 min readForerunner Of The US Cattle Industry Farmer's WeeklyArticle
Forerunner Of The US Cattle Industry
Nov 10, 2023
3 min readSummertime Pigs Australian HunterArticle
Summertime Pigs
Feb 28, 2018
6 min read‘The Deer Is Like Money’ Wild WestArticle
‘The Deer Is Like Money’
Nov 8, 2022
13 min readThe Last Frontier Wild WestArticle
The Last Frontier
May 23, 2023
3 min read
Reviews for Cattle Kingdom
Rating: 4.333333333333333 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
3 ratings0 reviews