In American Westerns, the main characters are most often gunfighters, lawmen, ranchers and dancehall girls. Civil professionals such as doctors, engineers and journalists have been given far less representation, usually appearing as background characters in most films and fiction. In Westerns about the 1910 Mexican Revolution, however, civil professionals also feature prominently in the narrative, often as members of the intelligentsia--an important force in Mexican politics. This book compares the roles of civil professionals in most American Westerns to those in films on the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Included are studies on the Santiago Toole novels by Richard Wheeler, Strange Lady in Town with Greer Garson and La sombra del Caudillo by Martin Luis Guzman.

 In American Westerns, the main characters are most often gunfighters, lawmen, ranchers and dancehall girls. Civil professionals such as doctors, engineers and journalists have been given far less representation, usually appearing as background characters in most films and fiction. In Westerns about the 1910 Mexican Revolution, however, civil professionals also feature prominently in the narrative, often as members of the intelligentsia--an important force in Mexican politics. This book compares the roles of civil professionals in most American Westerns to those in films on the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Included are studies on the Santiago Toole novels by Richard Wheeler, Strange Lady in Town with Greer Garson and La sombra del Caudillo by Martin Luis Guzman.

Covers wide range of popular British and American fiction and film including Westerns, spy fiction, science fiction and crime narratives.

A leading figure in the debate over the literary canon, Jane Tompkins was one of the first to point to the ongoing relevance of popular women's fiction in the 19th century, long overlooked or scorned by literary critics. Now, in West of Everything, Tompkins shows how popular novels and films of the American west have shaped the emotional lives of people in our time. Into this world full of violence and manly courage, the world of John Wayne and Louis L'Amour, Tompkins takes her readers, letting them feel what the hero feels, endure what he endures. Writing with sympathy, insight, and respect, she probes the main elements of the Western--its preoccupation with death, its barren landscapes, galloping horses, hard-bitten men and marginalized women--revealing the view of reality and code of behavior these features contain. She considers the Western hero's attraction to pain, his fear of women and language, his desire to dominate the environment--and to merge with it. In fact, Tompkins argues, for better or worse Westerns have taught us all--men especially--how to behave. It was as a reaction against popular women's novels and women's invasion of the public sphere that Westerns originated, Tompkins maintains. With Westerns, men were reclaiming cultural territory, countering the inwardness, spirituality, and domesticity of the sentimental writers, with a rough and tumble, secular, man-centered world. Tompkins brings these insights to bear in considering film classics such as Red River and Lonely Are the Brave, and novels such as Louis L'Amour's Last of the Breed and Owen Wister's The Virginian. In one of the most moving chapters (chosen for Best American Essays of 1991), Ttompkins shows how the life of Buffalo Bill Cody, killer of Native Americans and charismatic star of the Wild West show, evokes the contradictory feelings which the Western typically elicits--horror and fascination with violence, but also love and respect for the romantic ideal of the cowboy. Whether interpreting a photograph of John Wayne of meditating on the slaughter of cattle, Jane Tompkins writes with humor, compassion, and a provocative intellect. Her book will appeak to many Americans who read or watch Westerns, and to all those interested in a serious approach to popular culture.

As business interests have commercialized the American West and publishers and studios have created compelling imagery, the expectations of readers and moviegoers have influenced perceptions of the cowboy as a hero. This book describes the evolution of the cowboy hero as a mythic persona created by dime novels, television and Hollywood. Much of our concept of the cowboy comes to us from movies and the book's main focus is his changing image in cinema. The development of the hero image and the fictional West is traced from early novels and films to the present, along with shifting audience expectations and economic pressures.

The Western is the quintessential American epic--a mythic story of nation building, triumphs, failures, and fantasies. This book accompanies the first major exhibition to examine the Western genre and its evolution from the mid-1800s in fine art, film, and popular culture, exploring gender roles, race relations, and gun violence--a story that is about more than cowboys and American Indians, pursuits and duels, or bandits and barroom brawls. From 19th-century landscape paintings by Albert Bierstadt and Frederic Remington to works by Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, and Kent Monkman; from the legends of "Buffalo Bill" Cody and Billy the Kid to John Ford's classic films and Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns and recent productions by Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, and Joel and Ethan Coen, The Western observes how the mythology of the West spread throughout the world and endures today.

No Marketing Blurb