make it out to be, but different enough tornmake a difference, especially in the longrnrun. The founders, developers, andrnboosters of the West’s great cities wererncertainly provincial, like the cities themselves,rnbut they built with the great cosmopolitanrncities of the East in mind,rncopying or aspiring to the Eastern urbanrnmodel while importing Eastern values,rncultural forms, and political institutions.rnMore than anything they wished theirrnWestern cities to be “modern,” and progressive.rnStatistically at least, the Westrnwas becoming an urban region to the extentrnthat N.S.B. Gras, an economist, andrnRobert Park, a sociologist, described it inrnthe 1920’s as 12 or 14 metropolitan areasrnconnecting ranching and farming townsrnwith mining communities and drawingrnthe products of all of them to the newrncenters of national trade. While thernWest was substantially still a colony ofrnEastern investors and the federal militar}’rnestablishment, cultural exchange movedrnmostly in one direction —from West tornEast. With the coming of age of the urbanrnWest in the 20th century, howeverrn—and especially in the half-centuryrnsince World War II—patterns of influencernhave become much more complex,rnreflecting not just the nationalizationrnbut the internationalization of therneconomy.rnUrban development in the West hasrnbeen the vehicle by which region hasrnoverwhelmed frontier, and is now busilyrnfinishing it off. The frontier has resistedrnits fate, beginning with the Populistrncounterassault between 1890 and 1940,rnwhen the isolated rural West, alienatedrnalmost as much from its own cities andrntowns as from those of the East and Midwest,rnrevolted against Western industrialrncenters and the national capitalist systemrnin an attempt to localize the bases of politicsrnand finance. More recently thernfrontier has asserted itself through thernSagebrush Rebellion in the late 1970’srnand the early 80’s, the People for thernWest and Wise Use groups, the TenthrnAmendment movement, and the warrnagainst the War on the West. These,rnhowever, have proved of little use in reinvigoratingrnand preserving the remnant ofrnthe Old Frontier. This is partly becausernsome of them —like Wise Use —arernreally only puppets of the urban-capitalistrnenemy. A more important reason isrnthat the frontier was bought off as early asrna couple of centuries ago.rnPatricia Limerick is not all wrongrnwhen she charges that Western histon.’ inrnessence is nationalist histon’. The frontier,rnhowever eccentrically, was drawnrninto the greater nationalist and expansionistrnfervor almost from the beginning.rnLike almost everyone in America in thern19th century, frontiersmen were seducedrnby the romance of Western expansionismrnand Manifest Destiny and alsornby the missionary aspects of thesernobsessions: carrying Anglo-Saxon culture,rndemocracy, and Protestant Christianityrnto the Spanish, Mexicans, and Indiansrnof the American West. Almost asrnbad, they succumbed to the temptationrnto try to have it both ways; to own andrncontrol the land and other resources ofrntheir places of settlement while chivvyingrnsubsidies from the central governmentrnas a means of consolidating ownership.rnIt did not take long, however, forrnthe East to realize that the frontier, whenrnit came to protest and dissent, was givenrnmore to rhetoric than to action (as Rorbaughrnhas pointed out).rnThe West is a region. But without arnvigorous frontier culture it is certain tornbecome less and less a distinctive one,rnlargely geographical in nature. Absent,rnfurthermore, a strong frontier presencern—or anyway a legacy—the West isrnunlikely to be capable of summoning thernaudacity, the courage, and the determinationrnto press regional identity and regionalistrnpolicies, much less nationalistrnones. In spite of recent talk about devolutionrnand the Tenth Amendment, thernUnited States continues—year by year,rnmonth by month, day by day—toward arngreater homogeneity, a greater conformity,rna more complete centralization.rnSome of the reasons for this surrenderrnare doubtiess geopolitical, above all thernterritorial division between that portionrnof the West dominated by region, andrnthat where frontier holds sway—barely.rnThis division is one that is usually ignoredrnby historians and politicians,rnthough in fact it is crucial to understandingrnthe West, its past, present, and future.rnFor most people the West begins at thernHundredth Meridian and goes all thernway to the Pacific Coast. For others—rnartists and poets mainly, like WalterrnPrescott Webb and Edward Abbey—thernWest means the Rocky Mountain or IntermountainrnWest, exclusive of Californiarnand the western portions of Oregonrnand Washington. The real division, inrnother words, is geographical and cultural,rnnot political and administrative. It isrnthe division between region on the onernhand and frontier on the other. To manyrnWesterners today, frontier alone trulyrnmeans West. But if the West indeed isrnsynonymous with the Intermountainrnarea, then Western nationalism is surelyrnan impossibility for geopolitical and political-rnterritorial reasons, since no sanernperson believes that a Western Americanrnrepublic—running south from Canadarnto Mexico along the Rocky MountainrnCordillera, splitting the continental nationrnin two —can ever be a feasiblernproposition, or even a likely dream.rnUnfortunately there are other, evenrnmore basic reasons for concluding thatrnany Western nationalist or regionalistrnmovement is likely to be futile. Westernersrnfive and six generations ago were toornbusy making a living from a howlingrndesert to have time or energy left to preventrnWashington from dominating thernWest, and their descendants today arerntoo dependent on Uncle Sam to insistrnthat it should be otherwise —as the federalrngovernment is too reliant on Westernrndeserts as a place to store old people, rollrnpork barrels, explode bombs, and drawrnincoming missiles away from the WhiternHouse. The West has no formal regionalrnculture, no discrete body of learning,rnno rhetorical mode, as the South stillrnhas. Unlike the South, the West wentrnfrom the territorial stage to statehood beforernacquiring its universities, and evenrnthen these were developed, along withrnthe curriculum, from Eastern systems ofrneducation imposed by Eastern politicians.rnThe West was won largely by thernScots-Irish, who were then submergedrnby immigrants from alien cultures, advertisedrnfor and imported by Eastern industrialistsrnand their bought representativesrnin Washington. Today, the Indianrntribes out West have a culture, as thernMexican-Americans do; Westerners dornnot, although the frontier itself continuesrnto limp along in a distinct though muchrnattenuated way of life that has proved remarkablyrnresilient and resisting, underrnthe circumstances. The Tenth Amendmentrnmovement is isolated, and thernCommittee of 50 States is not exclusivelyrna Western enterprise; the countyrnmovement, in Catron County, NewrnMexico, and elsewhere, has been infiltratedrnby anarchists arrived from somewherernelse. Recreationists, industrialrntourists, second-home scum, and retirementrnretreads are flooding in from allrnover the United States, and the world.rnAny son of the Old West today who believesrnthat the West will rise again is notrnonly fooling himself. He is a fool. crn50/CHRONICLESrnrnrn