Mention of the American West usually evokes images of cowboys, ranchers and outlaws. Here the authors argue that everyday people helped carve out legal institutions that tamed the West, applying the lessons learned to modern "frontiers" - the environment, developing countries and space exploration. "Emergent, self-ordering institutional arrangements and property right norms are commonplace. But they are invisible to all those who rely upon them to create wealth, and who may believe falsely that all such rules come from legislated law. Anderson and Hill have made visible an impressive array of examples from US frontier history."