Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show

Great book from a great professor. Reading this was like sitting in Dr. Warren's class again. He can totally make history come alive and this book is no exception.

I was quite pleased witht the speed of delivery on this book and it's excellent condtion. It was all I could have hoped for. 5 Stars! Don Gilmore

William Cody was the most famous American of his times, renowned as a Pony Express rider, soldier, buffalo hunter and overall hero - but his creation of the Wild West show, a traveling company of cowboys and Indians which toured North American and Europe for over thirty years, solidified his importance and his name. BUFFALO BILL'S AMERICA: WILLIAM CODY AND THE WILD WEST SHOW provides the most detailed critical biography of Cody to appear in over forty years, considering his showmanship, his achievements, and the controversies which swirled around his life, both during time and into modern times. Chapters use source material references and quotes but maintain a lively style which lends to appeal by leisure audiences as well as students of American history.

An entertaining combination of history and biography Louis Warren's book manages to capture the elusive spirit of William Cody aka Buffalo Bill. Bill was a combination of hero, poser and entertainer as he frequently told tall tales linking him to the archetypical western hero Wild Bill Hickock. He dressed like Wild Bill, claimed to be his cousin (although the two weren't related Cody did meet Wild Bill at a young age and did travel with him later). Cody would variously claim that he was the youngest pony express rider (he neve rode for the pony express), was a spy during the Civil War (he wasn't) and was at many of Wild Bill's most famous exploits (he wasn't). It's ironic then that Bill Cody felt the need to embelish an already heroic career as a tracker and guide during the infamous Indian Wars. Cody lived during an uncertain time in the west and his role as a "white" Indian scout made people more comfortable that he was one of "us" who could fight and befriend one of "them" (i.e., the Indians whatever group they belonged to) unlike Wild Bill or other well known scouts who had reputations for violence and/or consorting (meaning marrying an Native American Indian)with the "enemy". Warren provides a fair balanced account of these troubled prejudiced times and what those on the frontier did to survive. Why did Bill Cody feel the need to tell tall tales about his career when he wasn't the charlatan that many trackers and guides were? Cody had that need to be larger than life and learned by observing people like P. T. Barnum that a little bit of truth and a lot of hokum go a long way. As Maxwell Scott (Carleton Young) states in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "When the Legend Becomes fact, Print the Legend". Perhaps Cody felt the facts weren't enough and that he needed to become a legend so that he might be recognized as such during his life time and after he died. Either way, this man who was an odd combination of hero and entertainer entered the the realm of legends. Interestingly, Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickock were frequently confused as the same person by people of the time. This marvelous book covers Cody's youth, his stretch as a scout, entertainer with his Wild West Show (which did feature Wild Bill Hickock at one time although Hickock supposedly became annoyed at one point by Cody's attempts to be like him)and later as a popular celebrity who embodied the lost days of the wild west. Featuring illustrations, Warren's book brings to life a lost era in America when heroism and legends became far more than stories to be told by camp fires late into the night.