In Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, the historian Gary Roberts takes aim at the most complex, perplexing, and paradoxical gunfighter of the Old West, drawing on more than 20 years of research - including new primary sources - in his quest to separate the life from the legend. Doc Holliday was a study in contrasts: the legendary gunslinger who made his living as a dentist; the emaciated consumptive whose very name struck fear in the hearts of his enemies

Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long Dodge City's streets were lined with saloons and brothels, and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the West.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But old cowboys? That’s a different story—especially when those cowboys are trail-hardened cattlemen like Casey Tubbs and Levi Doolin. When these longtime buddies learn that their bosses are getting out of the beef business, they figure it’s probably time to retire anyway. Nothing left to do now but deliver the last two-thousand cows to Albilene and collect their pay. There’s just one problem. Their bosses’ lawyer is skipping town with all the workers’ cash—which means Tubbs and Doolin have one last job to do...

A woman ahead of her time, Mary Breydon knew how to get things done. Raised on a Virginia plantation, she learned how to care for livestock, respect her workers, and keep good books. But after her husband is killed, Mary must provide for her young daughter by running a stage coach station on the Cherokee Trail. With the help of an Irish maid and a mysterious stranger, Mary faces challenges that even the men eagerly anticipating her failure would have a difficult time overcoming.

The romance of the West is built on an endless armature of shootouts and train robberies, cowboys versus Indians, white hat versus black, and everybody versus the wilderness. From John Colter's harrowing escape from the Blackfeet to Hugh Glass' six-week crawl to civilization after a grizzly attack, from Custer's final moments to John Wesley Powell's treacherous run through the rapids of the Grand Canyon, Cowboys, Mountain Men, and Grizzly Bears takes the top 50 wildest episodes in the region's history and presents them to the listener in one convenient, narrative-driven package.

After discovering six gold Roman coins buried in the mud of the Devil's Dyke, Barnabas Sackett enthusiastically invests in goods that he will offer for trade in America. But Sackett has a powerful enemy: Rupert Genester, nephew of an earl, wants him dead. A battlefield promise made to Sackett’s father threatens Genester’s inheritance. So on the eve of his departure for America, Sackett is attacked and thrown into the hold of a pirate ship.

In turbulent 1870s Texas, the revered and fearless Ranger Leander McNelly led his men in one dramatic campaign after another, throwing cattle thieves, desperadoes, border ruffians, and other dangerous criminals into jail or, if that's how they wanted it, six feet under. They would stop at nothing in pursuit of justice, even sending 26 Rangers across the border to retrieve stolen cattle—taking on hundreds of Mexican troops with nothing but their Sharps rifles and six-guns. The nation came to call them “McNelly’s Rangers.”

The summer of 1876 was a key time period in the development of the mythology of the Old West. Many individuals who are considered legends by modern listeners were involved in events that began their notoriety or turned out to be the most famous—or infamous—moments of their lives. Those individuals were Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James. The Summer of 1876 weaves together the timelines of the events that made these men legends.

The great Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud was the only Plains Indian to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the American government to sue for peace in a conflict named for him. At the peak of their chief’s powers, the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United States. But unlike Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, or Geronimo, the fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, his incredible story can finally be told.

Many of the most well-known lawmen of the American Wild West had multiple criminal charges to their name. Some were murderers, some were thieves, and many were corrupt - in fact, sometimes it was difficult to tell who was on which side of the law. Cowboys and Native Americans, robbers and sheriffs, courageous lawmen, opportunistic prospectors, frustrated Confederate soldiers turned outlaws after the war - the Wild West was filled with all of these. And their stories are breathtaking.

Luke Ransom was just 18 years old when he answered an ad in a St. Louis newspaper that would change his life forever. The American Fur Company needed 100 enterprising men to travel up the Missouri River - the longest in North America - all the way to its source. They would hunt and trap furs for one, two, or three years. Along the way, they would face unimaginable hardships: grueling weather, wild animals, hunger, exhaustion, and hostile attacks by the Blackfeet and Arikara. Luke Ransom was one of the brave men chosen for the job - and one of the few to survive....

The Open Range cattle era lasted barely a quarter-century, but it left America irrevocably changed. These few decades following the Civil War brought America its greatest boom-and-bust cycle until the Depression, the invention of the assembly line, and the dawn of the conservation movement. It inspired legends, such as that icon of rugged individualism, the cowboy. Yet this extraordinary time and its import have remained unexamined for decades. Cattle Kingdom reveals the truth of how the West rose and fell, and how its legacy defines us today.

Deadwood, South Dakota. Miners flock there seeking fortunes, while cardsharps, bandits, and businessmen seek to deprive those who strike gold by means fair and foul. Legendary former lawman Seth Bullock plans to keep the peace by any means necessary—especially when his good friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, is expected in town to celebrate the anniversary of Deadwood's founding.

Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the Philippine Sea when she is sunk by two Japanese torpedoes. For the next five nights and four days, almost 300 miles from the nearest land, nearly 900 men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive. Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.

Of all the colorful characters that inhabited the West during the 19th century, the man who has earned an enduring legacy as the region's quirkiest is John Henry "Doc" Holliday (1851-1887), a dentist turned professional gambler who was widely recognized as one of the fastest draws in the West. In fact, the only thing that might have been faster than the deadly gunman's draw was his violent temper, which was easily set off when Holliday was drunk. By the early 1880s, Holliday had been arrested nearly 20 times.

Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long Dodge City's streets were lined with saloons and brothels, and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the West.

Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full. The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona. There, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling, and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers.

Billy the Kid - a.k.a. Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, and William Bonney - was a horse thief, cattle rustler, charismatic rogue, and cold-blooded killer. A superb shot, the Kid gunned down four men single-handedly and five others with the help of cronies. Two of his victims were Lincoln County, New Mexico, deputies, killed during the Kid's brazen daylight escape from the courthouse jail on April 28, 1881.

The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going - one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors, and officially sanctioned killers.

Mike Cox, journalist and Texas Ranger grand master, recounts enthralling tales of men who proudly wore the silver Lone Star - once hand-carved from the Mexican five peso. Whether facing Indians, banditos, or Yankees, TexasRangers earned a reputation for being some of the most formidable lawmen in U.S. history.

Award-winning historian Michael Wallis has spent several years re-creating the rich, anecdotal saga of Billy the Kid (1859-1881), a deeply mythologized young man who became a legend in his own time and yet remains an enigma to this day. With the Gilded Age in full swing and the Industrial Revolution reshaping the American landscape, "the Kid", who was gunned down by Sheriff Pat Garrett in the New Mexico Territory at the age of 21, became a new breed of celebrity outlaw.

The must-have companion to Bill O'Reilly's historical docudrama Legends and Lies: The Patriots, an exciting and eye-opening look at the Revolutionary War through the lives of its leaders. The American Revolution was neither inevitable nor a unanimous cause. It pitted neighbors against each other as loyalists and colonial rebels faced off for their lives and futures. These were the times that tried men's souls: No one was on stable ground, and few could be trusted.

Art T. Burton sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late 19th-century America - and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Fluent in Creek and other Southern native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Bass Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws, and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Thomas Horn Jr. was an infamous figure in the 19th-century American Old West. Cowboy, soldier, government scout, translator, and gunman, Horn’s storied life has become an important part of western folklore. In 1902, he was convicted for murdering a 14-year-old boy after a run-in during a feud with a cattle rancher. The Life of Tom Horn is his life story in his own words, written from prison before he met his fate at the gallows the following year.

For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, best-selling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out the facts from folklore and paints a “compelling portrait of the charming, debonair, ranch hand-turned-outlaw” (Ron Hansen, author of The Kid) of the American West.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - as leaders of the Wild Bunch, they planned and executed the most daring bank and train robberies of the day, with a professionalism never before seen by authorities. For several years at the end of the 1890s, the two friends, along with a revolving cast who made up their band of thieves, eluded local law enforcement and bounty hunters, all while stealing from the rich bankers and eastern railroad corporations who exploited western land. The close calls were many, but Butch and Sundance always managed to escape to rob again another day - that is, until they rode headlong into the 20th century.

In the gold rush era of Virginia City, Montana, crime was afoot and justice shaky. Lawlessness ran amok in the form of gamblers, saloonkeepers, miners, dance hall girls, and road agents - outlaws who ambushed travelers on the road for a chance to steal precious gold. Of all the road agents, Henry Plummer was their king and elected sheriff. Plummer’s notorious road-agent band terrorized the highways until a group of ordinary citizens resolved to take the responsibility of social governance into their hands.

In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure.

The Wild West has made legends out of many men, but it also forged a lasting legacy for a few of the West's most legendary towns, and alongside the city of Tombstone, Arizona, perhaps the most famous of them was Deadwood in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Deadwood owes its notoriety to some of the colorful people who called it home, and a recent critically acclaimed television series about the town that brought it to life for millions of modern viewers.

Most Australians have heard of the Boer War of 1899 to 1902 and of Harry 'Breaker' Morant, a figure who rivals Ned Kelly as an archetypal Australian folk hero. Born in England and emigrating to Queensland in 1883 in his early 20s, Morant was a charming but reckless man who established a reputation as a rider, polo player and writer. He submitted ballads to The Bulletin that were published under the name 'The Breaker' and counted Banjo Paterson as a friend.

In Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, the historian Gary Roberts takes aim at the most complex, perplexing, and paradoxical gunfighter of the Old West, drawing on more than 20 years of research - including new primary sources - in his quest to separate the life from the legend. Doc Holliday was a study in contrasts: the legendary gunslinger who made his living as a dentist; the emaciated consumptive whose very name struck fear in the hearts of his enemies

Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long Dodge City's streets were lined with saloons and brothels, and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the West.

Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full. The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona. There, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling, and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers.

The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going - one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors, and officially sanctioned killers.

The summer of 1876 was a key time period in the development of the mythology of the Old West. Many individuals who are considered legends by modern listeners were involved in events that began their notoriety or turned out to be the most famous—or infamous—moments of their lives. Those individuals were Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James. The Summer of 1876 weaves together the timelines of the events that made these men legends.