Title: Westerns
First published: 1996
Description: Ranging from the novels of James Fenimore Cooper to Louis L'Amour, and from classic films like Stagecoach to spaghetti Westerns like A Fistful of Dollars, Mitchell shows how Westerns helped assuage a series of crises in American culture, including debates and nationalism, suffragetism, the White Slave Trade, liberal social policy, even Dr. Spock.

At the same time, Westerns have addressed issues of masculinity by setting them against various backdrops: gender (women), maturation (sons), honor (violence, restraint), and self-transformation (the West itself). Mitchell argues, for instance, that Westerns repeatedly depict men being punished as pretext for allowing them to recover, restoring themselves once again to full manhood. In Westerns, a man must continually work at being a man.

. The most extensive study of Westerns to appear in twenty-five years, Mitchell's book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the genre as well as for students of film, masculinity, and American Studies.
Subjects: Masculinity in literature, Motion pictures and literature, Western stories, History and criticism, Men in motion pictures, Men in literature, Western films, Masculinity, American fiction, In literature, History, Western stories, history and criticism, Men in popular culture
Places: West (U.S.), United States
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS374.W4 M55 1996