From about 1830 to 1849, Bent's Old Fort, located in present-day Colorado on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, was the largest trading post in the Southwest and the mountain-plains region. Although the raw enterprise and improvisation that characterized the American westward movement seem to have little to do with ritual, Douglas Comer argues that the fort grew and prospered because of ritual and that ritual shaped the subsequent history of the region to an astonishing extent.

At Bent's Old Fort, rituals of trade, feasting, gaming, marriage, secret societies, and war, as well as the "calcified ritual" provided by the fort itself, brought together and restructured Anglo, Hispanic, and American Indian cultures. Comer sheds new light on this heretofore poorly understood period in American history, building at the same time a powerfully convincing case to demonstrate that the human world is made through ritual.

Comer gives his narrative an anthropological and philosophical framework; the events at Bent's Old Fort provide a compelling example not only of "world formation" but of a world's tragic collapse, culminating in the Sand Creek massacre. He also calls attention to the reconstructed Bent's Old Fort on the site of the original. Here visitors reenact history, staff work out personal identities, and groups lobby for special versions of history by ritual recasting of the past as the present.

Douglas C. Comer serves the U.S. National Park Service as Manager of the Applied Archaeology Center at Silver Springs, Maryland.

"Worthwhile reading. It is a provocative book that should engage anyone interested in the American West, the nineteenth century, capitalism, ritual, material culture, and current perspectives and representations of the past."—Historical Archaeology

"Comer sees Bent’s Fort as the primary vehicle for introducing the 'culture of modernity' to the region’s traditional societies in the years before the U.S.-Mexico War and facilitating the U.S. victory in New Mexico. . . . Erudite and thoughtful work."—American Historical Review

"Comer has offered much that archaeologists can mull over and debate, embrace or discard. This is a challenging work, and one that presents real intellectual rewards."—Cambridge Archaeological Journal

"A work with a seemingly wide appeal. Its discussions of cultural geography, material culture, and ritual, for example, invite the attention of folklorists, anthropologists, and archaeologists, whereas its focus on Native American, Anglo, and Mexican interactions at one particular site attracts the scrutiny of ethnohistorians and social anthropologists."—Western Folklore

"An extraordinary work. . . . [It] is provocative and bristles in many places with interesting ideas. It should stimulate a good deal of discussion and debate."—Don D. Fowler, University of Nevada

"Throughout the text, Bent's Old Fort stands as a stark monument to the creation of the ideology of modern capitalism. Significantly, it informs us as much about ourselves as it does about the past."—Robert W. Preucel, University of Pennsylvania