The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West

This elegantly written account of the extraordinary Wright family of southern Utah succeeds in showing the challenges facing modern Western American ranchers. Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Branch (Boy on Ice) integrated himself with the family to produce an intimacy with world-class rodeo saddle-bronc riders, government land administrators, and hundreds of bawling cattle. Branch relates how rodeo prize money dramatically saved and improved the Wright's traditional ranching business, even while battering family members with uncountable broken bones and sacrificing critical family time. Far less political than James Pogue's account of the Bundy family (Chosen Country), Branch's take nonetheless portrays ranchers faced with restrictive federal government land policies and a significant increase in recreational users of the same lands they lease for grazing rights.