SPORTS & RECREATION
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Democracy's Mountain
Longs Peak and the Unfullfilled Promises of America's National Parks
In telling the history of Longs Peak and its climbers, Ruth M. Alexander shows how Rocky Mountain National Park, like the National Park Service (NPS), has struggled to contend with three fundamental obligations—to facilitate visitor enjoyment, protect natural resources, and manage the park as a site of democracy.
Rodeo
An Animal History
Rodeo is a dangerous sport that reveals many westerners as people proudly tolerant of risk and violence, and ready to impose these values on livestock. In Rodeo: An Animal History, Nance pushes past standard histories and the sport’s publicity to show how rodeo was shot through with stubbornness and human failing as much as fortitude and community spirit.
American Dude Ranch
A Touch of the Cowboy and the Thrill of the West
However contested and complicated in reality, western history is one of America’s national origin stories that we turn to in times of cultural upheaval. Dude ranches provide a tangible link to the real and imagined past; their persistence and popularity demonstrate how significant this link remains. This book tells their story—in all its familiar, eccentric, and often surprising detail.
Bud Wilkinson and the Rise of Oklahoma Football
Including vignettes of Wilkinson’s closest coaching friends (Royal, Bryant, Leahy, Sanders, Blaik, Tatum), Bud Wilkinson and the Rise of Oklahoma Football captures all the drama of Oklahoma’s ascendance and serves an authoritative and entertaining history of the sport that will appeal to all college football fans.
The Athlete in the Ancient Greek World
In looking at the implications of this development for athletes, whether high-performing or recreational, this erudite volume traverses such wide-ranging fields as history, literature, medicine, and sports psychology to recreate—in compelling detail—the life and lifestyle of the ancient Greek athlete.
Riding Buffaloes and Broncos
Rodeo and Native Traditions in the Northern Great Plains
Mellis has mined archival sources and interviewed American Indian rodeo participants and spectators throughout the northern Great Plains, Southwest, and Canada, including Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and Lakota reservations. The book features numerous photographs of Indian rodeos from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and maps illustrating the all-Indian rodeo circuit in the United States and Canada.
Wishbone
Oklahoma Football, 1959–1985
In Wishbone, veteran journalist Wann Smith provides an in-depth account of Sooner football from the team’s final years under Wilkinson through its remarkable turnaround under Coach Barry Switzer. At the heart of this story is the phenomenal success of the Wishbone offense—a hybrid offshoot of the Split-t formation that Wilkinson employed so successfully in the 1950s. Though not without its risks, the Wishbone offense changed the face of college football and was a key factor in Oklahoma’s resurgence in the 1970s with Switzer at the helm.
Off Trail
Finding My Way Home in the Colorado Rockies
In the tradition of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Tracy Ross’s The Source of All Things, Parnell’s mountaineering memoir shows us how, by pushing ourselves to the limits of our physical endurance and by confronting our deepest fears, we can become whole again.
The 1928 Bunion Derby
A Historical Tour and Driving Guide, Chicago to New York City
More than 200 illustrations—including period photographs, postcard images, and maps—enliven the story of this landmark race. The 1928 Bunion Derby is highlighted by tales of the torturous path runners followed to reach each overnight stop. And reports from period newspapers add color and a sense of the moment to the historic images and stories, both harrowing and heartwarming.
Wild Spaces, Open Seasons
Hunting and Fishing in American Art
In their depictions of the hunt or the catch, American artists connected a dynamic and developing nation to its past and its future. Through the examination of major works of art, Wild Spaces, Open Seasons brings to light an often-overlooked theme in American painting and sculpture.

Democracy's Mountain
Longs Peak and the Unfullfilled Promises of America's National Parks
In telling the history of Longs Peak and its climbers, Ruth M. Alexander shows how Rocky Mountain National Park, like the National Park Service (NPS), has struggled to contend with three fundamental obligations—to facilitate visitor enjoyment, protect natural resources, and manage the park as a site of democracy.
Rodeo
An Animal History
Rodeo is a dangerous sport that reveals many westerners as people proudly tolerant of risk and violence, and ready to impose these values on livestock. In Rodeo: An Animal History, Nance pushes past standard histories and the sport’s publicity to show how rodeo was shot through with stubbornness and human failing as much as fortitude and community spirit.
American Dude Ranch
A Touch of the Cowboy and the Thrill of the West
However contested and complicated in reality, western history is one of America’s national origin stories that we turn to in times of cultural upheaval. Dude ranches provide a tangible link to the real and imagined past; their persistence and popularity demonstrate how significant this link remains. This book tells their story—in all its familiar, eccentric, and often surprising detail.
Bud Wilkinson and the Rise of Oklahoma Football
Including vignettes of Wilkinson’s closest coaching friends (Royal, Bryant, Leahy, Sanders, Blaik, Tatum), Bud Wilkinson and the Rise of Oklahoma Football captures all the drama of Oklahoma’s ascendance and serves an authoritative and entertaining history of the sport that will appeal to all college football fans.
The Athlete in the Ancient Greek World
In looking at the implications of this development for athletes, whether high-performing or recreational, this erudite volume traverses such wide-ranging fields as history, literature, medicine, and sports psychology to recreate—in compelling detail—the life and lifestyle of the ancient Greek athlete.
Riding Buffaloes and Broncos
Rodeo and Native Traditions in the Northern Great Plains
Mellis has mined archival sources and interviewed American Indian rodeo participants and spectators throughout the northern Great Plains, Southwest, and Canada, including Crow, Northern Cheyenne, and Lakota reservations. The book features numerous photographs of Indian rodeos from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and maps illustrating the all-Indian rodeo circuit in the United States and Canada.
Wishbone
Oklahoma Football, 1959–1985
In Wishbone, veteran journalist Wann Smith provides an in-depth account of Sooner football from the team’s final years under Wilkinson through its remarkable turnaround under Coach Barry Switzer. At the heart of this story is the phenomenal success of the Wishbone offense—a hybrid offshoot of the Split-t formation that Wilkinson employed so successfully in the 1950s. Though not without its risks, the Wishbone offense changed the face of college football and was a key factor in Oklahoma’s resurgence in the 1970s with Switzer at the helm.
Off Trail
Finding My Way Home in the Colorado Rockies
In the tradition of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Tracy Ross’s The Source of All Things, Parnell’s mountaineering memoir shows us how, by pushing ourselves to the limits of our physical endurance and by confronting our deepest fears, we can become whole again.
The 1928 Bunion Derby
A Historical Tour and Driving Guide, Chicago to New York City
More than 200 illustrations—including period photographs, postcard images, and maps—enliven the story of this landmark race. The 1928 Bunion Derby is highlighted by tales of the torturous path runners followed to reach each overnight stop. And reports from period newspapers add color and a sense of the moment to the historic images and stories, both harrowing and heartwarming.
Wild Spaces, Open Seasons
Hunting and Fishing in American Art
In their depictions of the hunt or the catch, American artists connected a dynamic and developing nation to its past and its future. Through the examination of major works of art, Wild Spaces, Open Seasons brings to light an often-overlooked theme in American painting and sculpture.