14 autobiographical essays on the "myths of land, manhood, and manifest destiny on which ... American culture was founded. This is a deeply felt and highly informed essay collection about life in the American west by one of the finest writers ever to emerge from that region. As the Seattle Times has said of Owning It All: "You may never again see the American west in quite the same way if you take the time to view it through the eyes of William Kittredge. [This is a] stunning book." Having grown up on his family's cattle ranch in eastern Oregon, Kittredge directly confronts the contradictions and myths that lie at the heart of the Western experience: male freedom and female domesticity, the wild and the tame, self-interest and love of the land.