The American Cowboy

the long version

The cowboy is America's most popular folk hero; he appeals to millions of readers of fiction, historical narratives, biography, and folk tales; he commands a vast audience in radio, television, and the movies; but what was he? The question is not merely rhetorical, nor is its past tense miscalculated. As the authors of this book are careful to point out, the real, dyed-in-the-wool cowboy is a heroic being from the American past, and he richly deserves to be understood in terms of reality, as distinguished from myth, which has given him characteristics not entirely his own. Here, then, is the cowboy in his roles in frontier history and as he has appeared in literature - re-examined, revitalized, and set in proper perspective. -- Book Jacket.