In Lynching in the West: 1850–1935, artist and scholar Ken Gonzales-Day reconstructs the brutal and obscured history of racial violence in California and the American West.

Drawing on newspaper archives, court records, historical photographs, postcards, and other visual material, Gonzales-Day examines more than 350 cases of lynching that took place across California between 1850 and 1935, challenging the idea that lynching was primarily a Southern phenomenon.

The book sits between art history, photography, archival research, and political history, showing how violence was recorded, circulated, forgotten, and visually sanitised. Gonzales-Day’s work is especially interested in what images conceal as much as what they show, making for a serious, visually and historically rich title for readers interested in American history, photography, race, archives, colonial violence, and the politics of looking.

Duke University Press paperback edition. New and unopened in original shrinkwrap, with only very minor external shelf/handling wear visible to the wrap. Illustrated throughout.