Book Review of \u3ci\u3eGo East, Young Man: Imagining the American West as the Orient\u3c/i\u3e by Richard V. Francaviglia

Historical geographer Richard Francaviglia tackles the intriguing imagery of the American west as orient in his latest book. Using vivid examples from the last two hundred years, Francaviglia illustrates the connections between the west and the middle and far east: distant lands associated in western culture with ancient history and sacred landscapes, but also with sensuality and hedonism. Francaviglia argues that ‘Orientalism was a powerful force in shaping the way newcomers encountered, and made sense of, the people and places they found in the North American West’ (p. 13)