Who Shot Liberty Valance . When the fact becomes legend, print the legend. Some of our subjects are celebrated figures. Others will be new to most readers.
None plays the stereotyped part one or another of the West's contradictory myths dictates.
That sentence is a perfect illustration of the confused nature of the massive, 446-page companion to Burns' documentary and, in fact, of the film itself. It doesn't seem to occur to either Burns or Ward that the myths that have grown up around the American frontier might actually represent something organic to its nature. The reader is practically scolded for even wanting to know anything about the legendary Old West. And so, one searches in vain through The West for even a passing mention of Wyatt Earp, perhaps one of the two or three most famous people to inhabit the Old West. You may say that their aim isn't to make this into a white-boys rogues' gallery.