The sound and the fury: Quentin Tarantino threw a fit and filed suit when his script The Hateful Eight was leaked on the Internet. Too bad. He is...

Ode to the Cowboys
Former Cochise County ranch wife Joyce Aros was, she writes, “exposed for a time to some old-time cowboys.” From there she makes a leap of faith...

Robber Baron or Entrepreneur?
Italy had its banditti, Spain and Mexico their banditos. But when Americans sought a synonym for the clumsy “tycoon,” they reached all the way back...

The Duke: A Legendary Life
John Wayne liked J.R.R. Tolkien. That’s a fact in Scott Eyman’s new biography John Wayne: The Life and Legend. Where other biographers have...

Westward Across the Divide
Will Bagley, today’s most knowledgeable historian of the overland trails experience, has focused his narrative expertise on the most important point...

Gamblers, Gunfighters & Saloon Girls
For over half a century, author Larry McMurtry has brought the West alive to readers through his lean, lyrical prose. His personal experiences...

Happy Jack
The stars fill the dark sky. The night is deadly cold in the winter of 1872. Near Cape Nome, Alaska, the dead are seen trying to return to this...

A True Giant
True giants don’t need to declare themselves, they just are, and William Blinn, the quiet man from Ohio, is a true giant. Blinn has a talent for...

May 2014 Events
A Western roundup of events where you can experience the Old West. ANIMAL ADOPTIONS Miles City Bucking Horse Sale Miles City, MT, May 15-18: Watch...

Peter Iverson on Navajo History
Arizona State University Regents’ Professor of History (Emeritus) Peter Iverson has written for decades about the West. Although officially retired,...
Rough Drafts 4/14
In True West’s annual “Best of the West” January 2014 issue, I highlighted the best authors and books of 2013. A new category I’d like to introduce...

Gunsmoke’s Gun for Hire
The U.S. Army’s sidearm of choice from 1873 to 1892, the Colt.45 single action Army revolver, found new fans when Marshal Matt Dillon, played by...