Book Review: Cattle Kingdom

Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
Christopher Knowlton
History

Cattle Kingdom is a flat-out amazing read. Christopher Knowlton has written a book that switches almost seamlessly from the level of the individual cowboy--particularly E. C. "Teddy Blue" Abbott, whose memoirs I now have to read--to the ranch owners to the system as a whole. He does a great job at every level. Whether you want to know what it was really like to be a cowboy, or what drove the great cattle barons, or how the great cow towns flourished and faded, or what larger economic forces drove the whole thing, this is the book.

There are a few places where Knowlton wanders into asides, which could have been relegated to footnotes or appendices. Other than that, my only complaint about Cattle Kingdom is that, at 350-odd text pages, it's too short.

I have the impression that Cattle Kingdom hasn't gotten the attention or promotion it deserved. I heard about it by accident, on the radio, and I had some trouble finding it in the bookstore. That's a real shame. Read this one.

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This is as good a time as any to remind everyone that Steve Hockensmith is resuming his "Holmes on the Range" series. The titular first book, in particular, is a great fictional depiction of exactly the milieu of Cattle Kingdom.