Between Fighting Men: Nostalgia and B-Westerns

by David Bannon

This fully-illustrated book features B-Western posters, ads, ticket window cards, comics and magazines - many published here for the first time. From Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, John Wayne and Buck Jones to George Custer and Bat Masterson, the nature of masculinity and national memory is reviewed by an enthusiastic fan of the genre. This volume includes a facsimile reproduction of an article on cowboys by Theodore Roosevelt with art by Frederick Remington and a detailed introduction on nostalgia and the paradoxical nature of the low-budget Westerns of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s: heroic men in fancy clothes; morality tales in commercial endeavors; messages of peace and conformity in films about violent loners. Between Fighting Men will appeal to Western fans and scholars of film and cultural studies, gender studies and history.

155 pages, Paperback

First published April 27, 2013

About the author

David Bannon taught college for many years and publishes on art, history, culture, translation and grief. He has appeared on The Discovery Channel, A&E, and The History Channel and has been interviewed by NPR, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. He has lectured at libraries and museums and was curator of Asian art for the Florence Museum of Art and History in South Carolina. He is a member of the Rückert Society in Schweinfurt, Germany and a former member of the American Translators Association (ATA) and the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). David’s daughter, Jessica, died in 2015. He and his wife currently live in South Carolina.