Overview

The people who pushed west were mostly ordinary folks, the guts of the young United States, tough, ambitious, hardworking, and anxious to leave the world better for their kids than it had been for them. Those who did not come of that hardy stock did not last. With them came the trouble-makers, to everybody's sorrow. Some of them were already running from the law someplace else. Others were simply dishonest, looking for a time and place to blossom into full-blown hoodlums. Some of the young people emulated them: there was some illusory swagger in being a hoodlum, witness the nicknames they carried around . . . many of which they had invented themselves, a sort of phony glory. This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West's most egregiously bad bad guys caught in the act of mayhem, distraction, murder, and highway robbery, includes famous names like the Dalton gang, lesser known bandits like Kaiser Bill Goodman, and many more. The book will include archival illustrations and photographs of the shady characters and the scenes of their crimes.

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9780762791354

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Reviews

Bonnie Parker possessed 'no noticeable moral code except a fierce loyalty to Clyde Barrow, who was a pretty mangy sort even on his good days. It was a shame she hooked up with him, because Bonnie was a good deal smarter than Clyde and had some talent. Clyde had none, and wasn't very bright.' So contends University of Oklahoma law professor Robert Barr Smith in this informative, engaging, ... and darkly droll history of Southwestern outlaws during the 1860s-1930s...[Smith] boldly, wryly, and convincingly refutes the romanticized image of frontier desperados, who were, in reality, nothing but 'a plague' to law-abiding citizens of the West. Panhandle-Plains Historial Review

Author Information

Robert Barr Smith is a law professor at the University of Oklahoma and a retired colonel, U.S. Army. He is the author of four books and nearly 100 articles of western and military history. A senior parachutist, he served in Vietnam, Germany, and all across the United States. He is a frequent lecturer on the West.

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