Written with Lead: America's Most Famous and Notorious Gunfights from the Revolutionary War to Today

by William Weir

Written with Lead offers a compelling narrative history of twenty-one tragic episodes in American history-all involving firearms, heroes, and the ongoing public fascination with guns and gunfighters. Spotlighting events such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the bloody ambush of Bonnie and Clyde, and featuring three new essays (including one on the siege at Waco), Weir explores the history, culture, and mythology of guns in surprising and unpredictable ways.

Genres: History

368 pages, Paperback

First published July 7, 1992

Reviews

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

No one needs reminding that America has been chock full of guns since its birth, and that its history is loaded with gunfights. With the right storyteller, many of those gunfights could make for edge-of-your seat reading, but I wish I could say this book was that interesting.
Weir obviously researched this book very well, but he just is not a good storyteller. At least, that's the impression I got from reading this, which is my first book authored by him- maybe the others are better. But I found the prose in this one to be too clunky, draggy, and pocked with questionable grammar to keep my attention. Fact follows fact. In short, clipped sentences. Then he mentions an important detail. But it goes right by you. Because it is not given the attention it warrants.
As revealed in the more recent stories, he is also quite opinionated. In the chapter on the Waco Siege especially, he goes off on the "militarization" of U.S. law enforcement- with justification given the story- but doesn't convincingly explain WHY such militarization happened, choosing instead to blame presidents Clinton and Bush for promulgating it. In the chapter on the Columbine High shooting (why is that unspeakable tragedy in a book about gunfights?) he ultimately blames the incident on violent media such as movies and video games. Come now, we've been over this already.
All this being said, this book is not without its highlights and strong points. As I mentioned, it is well researched, and occasionally holds you interested for a while. But a page-turner it is not, and the staunchly-held opinions of the author are, unfortunately, not always well-argued. Not a crash and burn, but not a bullseye hit either.

[David Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun history read. I found great little tidbits on people from Pancho Villa to John Dillinger. I was surprised how much of their tales are "iffy" at best. Very entertainingly written. And many of the stories are the type of thing where truth ends up stranger than fiction.

[doowopapocalypse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun overview of the American gunman. Fans of Herbert Asbury would get a lot out of it.