Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize, Pen Center West Award, Ray Allen Billington Prize, Caughey Western History Prize, Western Writers of America Spur Award, and the Caroline Bancroft Prize.

Although many books have been written about the Colorado gold rush, this one concentrates on assessing the cataclysmic changes that it brought to the Great Plains. In addition, rather than casting the story in the usual terms of heartless aggressors and hapless victims, it supplies a large and insightful interpretation that at once softens and increases our understanding of the Anglo disruption of Plains Indian cultures. The book's lucid writing and extensive research give meaning to the frontier concept that has been lambasted for 30 years or more. West's story is a story of cultural revisions - and thus the imaginations and aspirations of many people.