{"product_id":"cowboy-politics-9781498549479","title":"Cowboy Politics","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe politics of popular westerns are surprising in substance and significance, especially of late. Cowboy Politics shows how westerns in literature, cinema, and television face the challenges of Western Civilization even more than the perils of American frontiers. Its strategy is to compare key westerns with major theories of modern and postmodern politics. So it analyzes novels from Owen Wister to Zane Grey and Larry McMurtry. It focuses on films from the western revival beginning in the 1990s and featuring Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, while its interest in TV stretches from singing cowboys and Gunsmoke to David Milch's Deadwood.Critics are apt to find in westerns the modern politics of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. They tap devices of individuality, rationality, contract, sovereign enforcement, and representation to overcome the chaotic violence of a wild zone. Cowboy Politics examines how westerns often find such measures insufficient to tame the West as a culture of honor and anger\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCowboy Politics is an immensely learned volume that distills a lifetime of study, thinking, reading and viewing into fascinating analyses of novels by Owen Wister, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour and Larry McMurtry, films such as Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992), and also television programs such as Deadwood (2004-6). . . . Cowboy Politics stands as an important piece of cultural and political theorizing. But the main contribution of the work for me is pedagogical. In this study, John Nelson has made an important and convincing case for the inclusion of westerns as worthy lenses onto the history of political theory and the emerging politics of the early twenty first century. * VoegelinView *\u003cbr\u003eNelson argues that literature, films, and TV shows about the American West reveal deep aspects of The West as a civilization. The result is full of surprising insights into both his fictional material, and the nature and sources of our common culture. -- Charles T. Rubin, Duquesne University\u003cbr\u003eIn this encyclopedic study of political myth-making in the genre of Westerns, John Nelson provides a range of tools, questions, and themes for students of political theory to deploy while watching, engaging, and teaching films. Westerns turn out to be an extraordinary font of narratives, rhetorical strategies, and images about American political life when illuminated by Nelson’s probing questions and analysis. As with Nelson’s earlier forays into various noirs, horror, and science fiction, Cowboy Politics is a stunning intellectual achievement that braids the history of cinema with political history and theory in a lucid style that deepens (without diluting) the fun of watching and discussing the films in question. -- Christopher C. Robinson, Clarkson University\u003cbr\u003eIn Cowboy Politics, John Nelson explores how popular Westerns are a key site for grappling with contemporary political dilemmas.  With intriguing examples and humor, Cowboy Politics shows how Westerns point beyond modernity, mixing liberalism with republicanism, and grappling with environmental, feminist, populist and authoritarian challenges.  Theorizing in the style of Hannah Arendt, Nelson demonstrates the potential moves that Westerns offer us—responsibility, speech, forgiveness—in facing the political questions of our own times. -- Linda Beail, Point Loma Nazarene University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePreface Chapter 1: “The Signs in This Book Spoke to Him”: The Western Craft of Culture and Convention Chapter 2: “The Stories of the West Are Many”: The Western Craft of Dream and Daring Chapter 3: “Strike First and Then Give Tongue”: The Western Culture of Honor and Anger Chapter 4: “Without Law, Man Becomes a Beast”: The Western Culture of Rationality and Sovereignty Chapter 5: “The Cowboy Represents That Independent Spirit”: The Western Culture of Individuals and Nations Chapter 6: “Live with Honor and [Leave] Our Mark”: The Western Culture of Honor and Character Chapter 7: “What’s He Going to Get Out of This?”: The Western Culture of Interest and Character Chapter 8: “Why Had He Waited So Long to Speak?”: The Western Craft of Pride and Performance Chapter 9: “A Track Is Not Only Marks upon the Earth”: The Western Craft of Faces and Traces Chapter 10: “It’s Not Revenge He’s After; It’s a Reckoning”: The Western Culture of Fear and Terror Chapter 11: “Accurate Description [with] Poetry to the Language”: The Western Craft of Myth and Symbol Chapter 12: “A Show Had to Be Real and Yet Not Real”: The Western Craft of Celebrity and Spectacle Chapter 13: “Revenge Broke It, and Disease”: The Western Craft of Forgiving and Forgetting Chapter 14: “Tell Him Something Pretty”: The Western Craft of Word and Deed Chapter 15: “In Whose Keeping Would the Horse Have Been?”: The Western Culture of Horizons and Responsibilities Bibliography About the Author","brand":"Lexington Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51040751616343,"sku":"9781498549479","price":101.7,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781498549479.jpg?v=1750947727","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/cowboy-politics-9781498549479","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}