{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"#1683 Writing the American West in a Time of Disillusionment","description":"Clay welcomes eminent western historian Paul Hutton for a discussion of his new book, The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West. Hutton is a distinguished emeritus professor of history at the University of New Mexico and also the Interim Curator of the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. Hutton\u2019s latest book attempts to strike a balance between the old, unreconstructed triumphalist view of America\u2019s westward movement and the more recent, guilt-ridden academic condemnation of the American experiment. We attempted to unpack the concepts of discovery, manifest destiny, the \u201cIndian Wars,\u201d and the mythology of the West, including in Hollywood Westerns. How should America think about its westward movement as the 250th birthday of the United States approaches? This podcast was recorded on October 30, 2025. ","author_name":"Listening to America with Clay Jenkinson","author_url":"https:\/\/ltamerica.org\/","html":"