"In 'Two Evil Isms' he boldly says that Horn was hired by the agency to help wealthy cattlemen get rid of small ranchmen at $660 a head." -Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Jan. 22, 1950 "'Two Evil Isms'...was highly critical of the methods used by the Pinkertons, accusing the agency of buying off policemen and politicians, bribing juries, intimidating witnesses, and murder." - Encyclopedia of the Great Plains (2004) "Siringo was...ordered to turn over to Pinkerton National Detective Agency 1,200 copies of Siringo's book 'Two Evil Isms.'" -Chicago Tribune, Jul. 18, 1915 "Siringo winds up his book 'Two Evil Ims' with some vitriolic remarks...we have reason to believe that the charge of criminal libel is a mere ruse to get him back to Chicago." -Santa Fe Mexican, Apr. 19, 1915 Was the infamous Tom Horn a misunderstood hero, or a ruthless villain capable of unspeakable cruelties. Siringo who knew and served with Tom Horn as a "cowboy detective" in Wyoming has surprising answers. In 1914, famous cowboy author, Charles Siringo, published his final and most controversial book "Two Evil Isms," a book that would be confiscated and suppressed, subjecting the author to extradition from New Mexico to face charges of criminal defamation in Chicago. The author served with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency for twenty-two years, and he publishes revelations from the inside. These stories of the methods of the Pinkertons were so objectionable to the private detectives that Mr. Siringo has been subjected to persistent persecution. Efforts have been made to exclude his book from the mails; and he himself has been arrested on warrants charging him with libel.In his book, Mr. Siringo deals with Chicago anarchist cases, the Coeur D'Alene riots, the Haywood trial, and many other thrilling episodes of crime. Mr. Siringo's description of the slavery system of the Rockefellers and other Coal Kings in Colorado: his flash-lights on the custom of politicians who hire private detective agencies to corrupt voters; his exposures of how juries were fixed, and witnesses either found or lost, constitute a moving picture showing of ways of "playing the game" in the early 1900s.

Charlie Siringo (1855-1928) lived the quintessential life of adventure on the American frontier as a cowboy, Pinkerton detective, writer, and later as a consultant for early western films. Siringo was one of the most attractive, bold, and original characters to live and flourish in the final decades of the Wild West. His love of the cattle business and of cowboy life were so great that in 1885 he published A Texas Cowboy, or Fifteen Years on the Hurricane Deck of a Spanish Pony--Taken From Real Life, which Will Rogers dubbed the "Cowboy's Bible." Howard R. Lamar's biography deftly shares Siringo's story within seventy-five pivotal years of western history. Siringo was not a mere observer but a participant in major historical events including the Coeur d'Alene mining strikes of the 1890s and Big Bill Haywood's trial in 1907. Lamar focuses on Siringo's youthful struggles to employ his abundant athleticism and ambitions and how Siringo's varied experiences helped develop the compelling national myth of the cowboy.

"Marcus Klein makes major contributions to American studies, literary criticism, and intellectual and social history. In a perfectly crystalline and crystallized way, he brilliantly exhibits how the American imagination was rapidly, unexpectedly, and utterly transformed as we made for the twentieth century. Klein demonstrates how immigration, popular literature, the rise of ethnicity, new psychological fears, and old fables mixed together to make modern America. No one has seen the underside of the American imagination so clearly and originally; but once we are allowed to see what Klein does, our understanding of our history and its vicissitudes is changed for good."--Jay Martin, University of Southern California

Authoritative guide to everything in print about lawmen and the lawless—from Billy the Kid to the painted ladies of frontier cow towns. Nearly 2,500 entries, taken from newspapers, court records, and more.

Extraordinary rendition—the practice of abducting criminal suspects in locations around the world—has been criticized as an unprecedented expansion of U.S. police powers. But America’s aggressive pursuit of fugitives beyond its borders far predates the global war on terror. Uncle Sam’s Policemen investigates the history of international manhunts, arguing that the extension of U.S. law enforcement into foreign jurisdictions at the turn of the twentieth century forms an important chapter in the story of American empire. In the late 1800s, expanding networks of railroads and steamships made it increasingly easy for criminals to evade justice. Recognizing that domestic law and order depended on projecting legal authority abroad, President Theodore Roosevelt declared in 1903 that the United States would “leave no place on earth” for criminals to hide. Charting the rapid growth of extradition law, Katherine Unterman shows that the United States had fifty-eight treaties with thirty-six nations by 1900—more than any other country. American diplomats put pressure on countries that served as extradition havens, particularly in Latin America, and cloak-and-dagger tactics such as the kidnapping of fugitives by Pinkerton detectives were fair game—a practice explicitly condoned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The most wanted fugitives of this period were not anarchists and political agitators but embezzlers and defrauders—criminals who threatened the emerging corporate capitalist order. By the early twentieth century, the long arm of American law stretched around the globe, creating an informal empire that complemented both military and economic might.