In 1865, Wild Bill Hickok killed Dave Tutt in a Missouri public square in the West's first notable "walkdown." One hundred and twenty-nine years later, Bernhard Goetz shot four threatening young men in a New York subway car. Apart from gunfire, what could the two events possibly have in common? Goetz, writes Richard Maxwell Brown, was acquitted of wrongdoing in the spirit of a uniquely American view of self-defense, a view forged in frontier gunfights like Hickok's. When faced with a deadly threat, we have the right to stand our ground and fight. We have no duty to retreat. No Duty to...
In 1865, Wild Bill Hickok killed Dave Tutt in a Missouri public square in the West's first notable "walkdown." One hundred and twenty-nine years later...
Helldorado offers cinematic images of wagon trains crossing the Great Plains, of Phoenix and Denver emerging from the dust and mud, of Tombstone blazing through a silver bonanza, and of the railroad joining East and West to change history. In his memoirs, originally published in 1928, William M. Breakenridge is shown doing about everything an enterprising and vigorous young man could do on the frontier. After leaving Wisconsin at the age of sixteen, he became a teamster, railroader; and lawman in Colorado, Arizona, and elsewhere. He took part in the Sand Creek Massacre, here described from...
Helldorado offers cinematic images of wagon trains crossing the Great Plains, of Phoenix and Denver emerging from the dust and mud, of Tombstone blazi...
"Richard Maxwell Brown's brief study of 'violence and American values' is quite simply a tour de force of provocatie, well-conceived, and smoothly written historiography....rich with novel insights, new conceptualizations, and solid documentation." -Richard W. Etulain, in Reviews in American History. "Fascinating and provocative, No Duty to Retreat is an authoritative examination of violence not only on the American frontier and in American society at large, but in American jurisprudence as well." -Robert M. Utley, author of High Noon in Lincoln, Billy the Kid, and Cavalier in Buckskin:...
"Richard Maxwell Brown's brief study of 'violence and American values' is quite simply a tour de force of provocatie, well-conceived, and smoothly wri...
Bleeding Kansas has earned its name. A state already scarred from the violence wrought by the likes of John Brown and William Quantrill, Kansas witnessed further episodes of wanton bloodshed in the late nineteenth century when settlers poured into a supposedly peaceful frontier.
Focusing on the tumultuous years 18851892, Robert K. DeArment s compelling narrative is the first to reveal the complete story of the county seat wars that raged in Kansascontroversial episodes that made national news in the late 1900s but are largely unknown today.
With a story populated by some of the most...
Bleeding Kansas has earned its name. A state already scarred from the violence wrought by the likes of John Brown and William Quantrill, Kansas wi...
Those who will recall the Simpson trial as the legal extravaganza of its century might be surprised by striking parallels between it and the late-nineteenth century trial of the infamous Frank James.In 1882 James surrendered to authorities voluntarily and was tried for murder the following year in Gallatin, Missouri. Petrone's analysis of primary and secondary sources tells the story of a charismatic prominent figure, who assembles his century's legal dream team and in the face of overwhelming incriminating evidence, wins acquittal from a sympathetic jury."The trial of Frank James has never...
Those who will recall the Simpson trial as the legal extravaganza of its century might be surprised by striking parallels between it and the late-nine...
