| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.3

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Hunger for the Wild: America's Obsession with the Untamed West. By Michael L. Johnson. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. xvii + 533 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. $34.95.)

In Hunger for the Wild, University of Kansas literature scholar Michael Johnson explores America's enduring fascination with all things wild and west. Examining a diverse cast of regional actors, from Native Americans and Spanish colonizers to gay cowboys and Hollywood moguls, Johnson follows five hundred years of evolving attitudes about the West and its ruggedness. For students of western history, this is well-traveled ground and, as the author correctly acknowledges, any investigation of the wild West engages its share of clichés, myths, and popular icons. But in linking perceptions of the western landscape to the production of cultural values, Johnson manages to find working space within a crowded field. Hunger for the Wild examines how the region's many inhabitants shaped the West's "peculiar cultural colorfulness"—but celebrating western diversity is not Johnson's intent. Rather, his goal is to reveal the contemporary legacy of long-standing perceptions, or more appropriately, misperceptions, about the environment on the transformation of regional life and culture.

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