《书目》(Booklist)书评
The plots of many fictional westerns have been based on the hatred between cattlemen and sheepmen. Though this animosity wasn't nearly as prevalent as myth would have us believe, it did exist--and on occasion resulted in violent conflicts. O'Neal credits the primary basis for the half-century of struggle to the ownership and maintenance of grazing areas, which could provide wealth in the form of beef, mutton, and wool. He provides a thorough study of the subject from the days of the open range up until the final salvos were fired during the early decades of the twentieth century. An engrossing tale that encompasses a variety of hostilities across the entire West. Bibliography; to be indexed. --Fred Egloff
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
In this commonplace retelling of the cattleman-sheepherder conflicts, O'Neal gives competition for grazing land as the basis for the conflicts. But he does not go much deeper into the economics of cattle and sheep raising, preferring instead to concentrate on who shot whom. Thus, it is not entirely clear why some ranchers switched from cattle to sheep. O'Neal further weakens his narrative by not including information on flock sizes, which would help in assessing the destructiveness of each raid, and the number of incidents, which would give an indication of how widespread the violence actually was. The result is a perpetuation of the myth of the ``wild West'' that will not satisfy specialists, although it may be suitable for popular collections.-- Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
