Westerns

Philip French looks at how politics, history and culture shaped the Western film, with a focus on the three decades following World War II. He examines how these films portray Native Americans, Black Americans, women and children, and considers the place of gunfights, card games and the open landscape in the genre.

His central argument is that most Westerns from those years fall into four main groups, each reflecting the outlook of one of four prominent figures of the period: John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Lyndon Johnson and William F. Buckley. French contends that these categories reveal the ideas of their time.

He also argues that the Western remains a powerful mirror of American social and psychological life, making the book a study of both a film genre and the country that produced it.