The Far Southwest traces the history of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona from 1846 to 1912. Lamar analyzes the evolution of American political and economic systems to show, in particular, their impact on the racial and ethnic groups already present in the Southwest in 1846. In describing how American government and institutions such as the two-party system, trial by jury, and free schools were established in the Far Southwest, Lamar also puts...

The travel journal of Susan Shelby Magoffin, eighteen years old and a bride of less than eight months, who in 1846 set out with her husband, a veteran Santa Fe trader, on a trek from Independence, Missouri, through New Mexico and south to Chihuahua, describes the fifteen-month journey during which the Mexican War was beginning and New Mexico was occupied by Stephen Watts Kearny and the Army of the West.