The casual and the serious of American history — fiddlers, yarn spinners, and riverboat gamblers, politicians, educators, and social reformers — have all concerned Thomas D. Clark, celebrated historian of the Western frontier and the changing South. Three American Frontiers, a volume of his selected writings, draws from works produced throughout Clark's long career as a writer, teacher, and lecturer on the frontier West, social change in the South, and the cutting-edge of historical research.

An avid researcher and a tenacious collector of original materials, Clark looks to the everyday items like the record book of a country store, the file of a small-town newspaper, or the diary of a young Gold Rusher for aids to the analysis of larger trends in history. Holman Hamilton conveys Clark's unique approach to his material and his enthusiasm for the common man in America's past.