Description:
Founded in Colorado in 1898, Outdoor Life magazine grew to become one of America's most prominent sporting and conservation journals. Now in its third edition, this collection gathers highlights from nine decades' worth of issues. Sometimes contrarian, Outdoor Life was one of the first national publications to take up the cause of the American Indian; early in this collection, assembled by former editor William Rae, an essay from 1918 observes that white intruders precipitated most of the conflicts that led up to the so-called Indian Wars, and that as early as the 1850s "it was practical for a man to walk from the Missouri River to almost any place he wished to go in the West ... without carrying a blanket, a gun or a pound of food, and sleep and eat every night on the way at some ranch, or other more or less permanent settlement." Though devoted to blood sports, the magazine also early embraced the cause of conservation, and many of the pieces gathered here plea for the preservation of wild lands and the protection of predators and game species. Outdoor Life was a literate hook-and-bullet publication, with contributions from the likes of Zane Grey, Roderick Haig-Brown, and Edwin Way Teale, samples of whose work is included here. The volume has an old-fashioned feel, for Rae's collection ends at 1981, and most of the material in it was originally published before 1960; it remains for another volume to bring the magazine's greatest hits up to date. Still, longtime readers of the magazine and outdoor enthusiasts alike will enjoy leafing through these pages. --Gregory McNamee
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