Hope Ryden

This book covers all aspects of mustang life, lore and history. It also offers a window on the history of the opening of the West and answers such questions as:

Where did the wild horses originate? What links them to the Spanish Conquistadors? How did horses transform the Plains Indians?How did Indian horses help the Lewis and Clark expedition? Why were the Indians not allowed to take their horses with them when they were forced to move onto reservations? Why are wild horses not welcome on the public lands? What has happened in the years since the wild horse was declared a "national heritage species"?

America's Last Wild Horses covers the entire history of this animal up to the present and explains the current controversies over wild horse numbers.

Note on new edition

Latest political developments in the saga of the wild horse are included in an updated edition of America's Last Wild Horses republished by Lyons and Burford in June 2005. If this edition is not the one carried by your bookstore ask them to order it for you.

REVIEWS

A Natural Science Book Club alternate selection

Hope Ryden, the sincere and studious author of "America's Last Wild Horses" has written her stirring history and defense of the gallant Cayuses with a white hot flame of outrage which should blister the labels off every can of mustang meat in the pet-food stores.
Sterling North, St Louis Post Dispatch

The author powerfully describes what has happened to the mustangs, and why --- a narrative which becomes something of a saga involving the history of the American Indian and his "horse culture" and a great deal of the old familiar white-man's greed, rapaciousness, and lack of foresight. She pulls no punches when telling the tragic tale of the decimation of the horses by pirates from the horse meat canneries, or the almost fanatic campaigns against the wild horses waged by hunters clubs. A richly researched and well written book with an unusual appeal.
Publishers Weekly.

When a case is put in the form of a book as engrossing as this one, it is compelling. Hope Ryden spent a lot of time in the library, and plenty on foot and horseback getting this story. She slept by waterholes, pieced together skeletons, tracked down oldtimers in their eighties and nineties. She explored a huge government tract in Nevada off-limits to humans. The area is replete with flora and fauna, including wild horses, proving that where you subtract man, you add life.
Boston Globe

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