Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America by Richard Slotkin. New York. 1992. Atheneum. 0689121636. 850 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Kathy Kikkert.  

DESCRIPTION - In Gunfighter nation: the myth of the frontier in twentieth-century America (Atheneum, 1992), the concluding volume of his highly acclaimed trilogy, Slotkin draws on a wide range of sources to examine the pervasive influence of Wild West myths on American culture and politics. In the third of a three-volume study in the development of the myth of the frontier in US literary, popular, and political culture from the colonial period to the present, Slotkin covers the expression of the frontier myth in such popular culture phenomena as dime novels, Buffalo Bill's Wild West, the formula fiction of 1900-40, and the Hollywood film. Covering historiography, Slotkin also discusses the exploration of the significance of the American frontier experience in Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West and Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Richard Slotkin (born 1942) is a cultural critic and historian. He is the Olin Professor of English and American Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, and in 2010 was elected a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1995 he received the Mary C. Turpie Award of the American Studies Association for his contributions to teaching and program-building. Slotkin writes novels alongside his historical research, and uses the process of writing the novels to clarify and refine his historical work.

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