Much has been written about the west-most of it clouded by exaggeration and fabrication. It’s a symbol for a kind of individualism that actually doesn’t exist in the West, but mythically it does.” As historian Richard White says, “People could go west and no matter their failures elsewhere, they had an opportunity to remake themselves. This book looks at all these mythical characters, the start of the railroad across the nation, the cost it all dealt to the Native Americans whose land was lost, and the way Hollywood still keeps the dream alive. It forged extraordinary legends and even bigger lies, with everything fueled by dime novels written back East that encouraged folks to grab their share of a promise that was difficult for this hard land to keep. It was an age of gunfights and gold rushes, cowboys and Comanches, with the likes of Buffalo Bill, Jesse James and Billy the Kid making their names. The Wild West was the American Dream on steroids. Within these pages, readers will explore true tales of rebels and heroes such as General George Custer, Buffalo Bill, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Annie Oakley, and Sitting Bull, among others. This spirit captured the popular imagination in the Wild West, those raucous 30 years between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of a new century.
This book looks at why the American Cowboy represents American toughness, independence, and resilience to the rest of the World.įor several hundred years, the West had been the land of dreams, an extraordinary region of hope, expansion and opportunity where European countries-and then the young USA itself-sent their finest explorers to plant seeds in a seemingly untapped, open landscape.
But mostly, this book is about why the American Cowboy became America’s quintessential role model. Since evidence proves or disproves what we’ve all been told about the Old West by Hollywood and writers who are not objective researchers, this is my attempt at taking a fresh look at Wyatt Earp, Tom Horn, and others. My articles on the Old West have never been meant to dispel the myths or attack legends but to simply explain what I’ve found after taking a hard look, an honest look, an objective look, at the evidence that’s available. In 2010, I started a blog, The American Cowboy Chronicles, to share what I’ve learned and celebrate the virtues of America. The research presented here comes from what I’ve found during my more than forty-five years of researching American history, but especially what I’ve learned in regards to the other side of the myths and legends of the Old West.
0 kommentar(er)
