The lecture situates the American West in a broad regional scope.  Rather than relying on geography, the lecture presents sets of processes and ideologies that take root over time in the region and beyond.  These include conquest and colonization, migration, ethnic and racial formations, nation-state building, gender construction, market capitalism and mineral extraction and varieties of interactions with the environment.  Ultimately, the American West appears not as an isolated, exceptional locale, but rather as a significant arena of convergence and contestation of national and transnational peoples, cultures, ideas and markets.