cover image Cowboy

Cowboy

Holly George-Warren. Reader's Digest Association, $32.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-7621-0375-1

One hundred years ago, cowboys were a driving force in popular culture, ""giving life to the brand-new motion picture industry, riding on the coattails of the still-solvent but fading traveling Wild West show extravaganzas, and the still-flourishing dime novel publishing boom."" Asserting that cowboys ""never really went away,"" journalist Holly George-Warren presents Cowboy: How Hollywood Invented the Wild West. Fantastically illustrated with vintage movie posters and film stills, the book covers the films of actors from Roy Rogers to Clint Eastwood; the western musicals of Gene Autry; cowboy style from Stetson hats to pointy-toed boots; and legendary cowboys such as Hopalong Cassidy and Buffalo Bill.