We’ve seen them ride off into the sunset at the end of the story, but what happens when the heroes and outlaws, the men of myth and grand adventure,...
Butch is Back!
read more
Western Books & Movies
From Deadwood to Hollywood
Sopranos creator David Chase is working with HBO on a new miniseries, Ribbon of Dreams, about the early days of Hollywood. The two principal...
1972’s Ulzana’s Raid
Ulzana’s Raid is one of the rare movies that has a particularly strong theme—violence: what does it mean, and how is it used? To perfectly...
Hearts Aglow
In Hearts Aglow, by Tracie Peterson, Deborah Vandermark lives in Texas after the Civil War. Interested in becoming a physician, she studies with the...
The Golden West: Fifty Years of Bison Books
In 1961 Bison Books blazed a paperback trail to some of the best stories about Nebraska and the Great Plains. Mari Sandoz’s Old Jules led a prairie...
West of Here
West of Here, by Jonathan Evison, is a five-generation saga that begins with the arrival of 1890s idea man Ethan Thornburgh at the fishing village...
Doc
Fiction requires a suspension of disbelief, and history buffs will have to do a lot of suspending with Mary Doria Russell’s Doc. What is this need...
Child of the Fighting Tenth
If one area of Western Americana comes up short, it is memoirs of “Army brats” in the Old West. Forrestine C. Hooker’s Child of the Fighting Tenth...
David Crockett: The Lion of the West
Davy Crockett became one of America’s first celebrities, as Michael Wallis impressively demonstrates in David Crockett: The Lion of the West. With a...
Bloody Bill Longley
Rick Miller’s Bloody Bill Longley peels away the folklore encasing a once-notorious Texas outlaw. More cowardly braggart than badman, Longley...
Captain John R. Hughes: Lone Star Ranger
The Texas Rangers have more to offer than just Jack Hays. A ranger who continued his tradition in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries was John...
Kit Carson: The Life of an American Border Man
Two schools of thought exist on mountain man Kit Carson. He was either one of the great scout/explorers in American history, or he tried to wipe out...