When the Century Was Young

The insightful and heartwarming memoir of one of twentieth-century America’s most celebrated frontier writers

Dee Brown’s fascinating memoir describes a writer’s evolution—and a time when catching rides on trains or seeing the landing of a Curtiss Jenny airplane were simple and profound pleasures. Brown traces his upbringing in Arkansas in the early 1900s, and the oil boom that hit his tiny town. He writes of how he fell under the spell of books and history, and of his eventual work as a journalist and printer before finding his true love—the American West—which would lead to his penning the classic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Written with gentle humor and a scholar’s curiosity, When the Century Was Young is a wistful look at youth during a poignant moment in American history.