Gunfighters, Highwaymen & Vigilantes Heading: Book Review

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And on page 86 ("The cold and snowy month of April 1863 found James Sears...") month's don't "find" people. Still, this book is easy juvenile or adult reading, unpretentious, and the humorous descriptions of life in these wild times are entertaining.

New York Times critic, William Broyles Jr., writes that McGrath's chapters on the mining boomtown of Aurora "provide some wonderful frontier tales..." (about Samuel Clemens and the Daly gang's lynching by vigilantes) "...but otherwise add little to either our understanding of the West or Mr. McGrath's hypothesis" (Broyles, 1984). This is an unfair and unjustified attack on McGrath's book. A quick review of the sections on Aurora, with it's "highly structured" institutions of "law and justice," its climate, its percentage of prostitutes ("perhaps half" of the population), and its rich veins of gold and silver, were well presented, informative, and made a contribution to his thesis and to the substance of the book.

Thomas J. Noel, writing in American Historical Review, takes issue with McGrath's assertion that Chinese laborers and other minorities were not attacked violently simply because they were "members of minority groups.

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" Noel has a good point, especially given the history of hatred and mistreatment of blacks and Native Americans. Another reviewer, Frank Schroth, writing in Library Journal, complains that McGrath's comparisons of the levels of violence in the frontier towns with violence that existed in the eastern cities are "overdrawn." Still, Schroth goes on to say that the "widest audience" for McGrath's book will be scholars of the American West. That is praise that is brought in through the back door, but praise nonetheless.

Summary Statement: McGrath's book is an excellent addition to the existing history of the West; it contains information that readers won't find anywhere else, and it brings the Hollywood version of the "old West" back to reality for those who take the time to read it......

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