University of Cincinnati history professor Mark A. Lause likes to rub the rough spots in American history, the places where the story doesn’t go the expected way. His previous books include
Race and Radicalism in the Union Army, on the successes and struggles of mixed black, Indigenous and white army units, and
The Antebellum Crisis and America’s First Bohemians, on the alternative culture and politics that bloomed in New York while war clouds gathered. In his new book,
The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots and Class Conflicts in the American West, he looks at that mythical independent contractor, the cowboy living off the land with no social obligations and immediate access to
justice in his holster.