Richard W. Slatta [SLAH tah] is professor of history at North Carolina State University, where he has taught since completing
doctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin in 1980. Born in North Dakota, Slatta grew up in the western states of Wyoming,
California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and Texas. He served as a Peace Corps volunteer in a squatter settlement outside Panama
City and spent two years in the Second Armored Division at Ft. Hood, Texas. His research on comparative ranching frontiers has taken
him throughout Latin America, the United States (including Hawaii), and Alberta, Canada.

His books include Cowboy: The Illustrated History (2006), The Mythical West (2001), Comparing Cowboys and Frontiers (1997), The
Cowboy Encyclopedia (1994), and Cowboys of the Americas (1990).

The American Library Association and the Library Journal selected The Cowboy Encyclopedia as a Best Reference Source.  Cowboys of the
Americas won the 1991 Western Heritage Award for Nonfiction Literature, given by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum,
Oklahoma, City. He received the 2008 award for writing from the American Cowboy Culture Association.