Literature of the American West Series

Our sense of place is permeated by ghosts from the past. In GhostWest, Ann Ronald takes the reader to historical sites where something once happened. Using the metaphor of hauntings, she reflects on how western history, literature, and lore continue to shape our visceral impressions of these sites.

In chapters both lyrical and thoughtful, passionate and humorous, GhostWest covers sites in seventeen western states, including the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana, Willa Cather's Nebraska prairies, and the Murrah Building bombing site in Oklahoma. Through these settings and their phantoms, the author mulls questions of why we find such ambience and artifacts so compelling.

Volume 7 in the Literature of the American West series

Oh, Give Me a Home

by Ann Ronald

Published 1 October 2006

Evoking memorable images of the American West, the old cowboy song ""Home on the Range"" is both nostalgic and eternally appealing. The verses remind us of the sweep of history, while their innocence indicates the way westerners still tend to view the land.

In lyrical prose, Ann Ronald's Oh, Give Me a Home muses on the words of the beloved ballad, exploring what it means to be a westerner today and speculating on how our present actions are shaping the West for future generations. Through Ronald's eyes, we see the western world, not through rose-colored glasses, but through a prism of peaks and canyons and big sky - landscapes that continue to promise freedom, optimism, and infinite possibilities.

Oh, Give Me a Home also crosses into a new American West - a land of Indian gaming and cloud seeding, wildlife management and urban forest fires, theme parks and pay-per-view scenery. It is a realistic, yet fond look at the West, a ""home"" that for many of us is as much a state of mind as it is an actual place.