The Gunfighters Audiobook By Bryan Burrough cover art

The Gunfighters

How Texas Made the West Wild

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The Gunfighters

By: Bryan Burrough
Narrated by: Fred Sanders
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Buy for $21.60

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Named a Best Book of 2025 by Bloomberg

“One hell of a good read.” —The New York Times

“One of the most important books written on the American West in many years.” —True West Magazine

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Big Rich and Forget the Alamo comes an epic reconsideration of the time and place that spawned America’s most legendary gunfighters, from Jesse James and Billy the Kid to Butch and Sundance

The Wild West gunfighter is such a stock figure in our popular culture that some dismiss it as a mere product of dime novels and B movies. As Bryan Burrough shows us, there’s much more below the surface. At the end of the 1800s, a big swath of the American West was a crucible of change, with the highest murder rate per capita in American history. The reason behind this boils down to one word: Texas.

Texas was born in violence, on two fronts, with Mexico to the south and the Comanche to the north. The Colt revolver first caught on with the Texas Rangers. Southern dueling culture transformed into something wilder and less organized in the Lone Star State. The collapse of the Confederacy and presence of northern occupiers turned the heat up further. The explosion in the postwar cattle business took that violence and pumped it out from Texas across the West. The stampede of longhorn cattle brought with it an assortment of rustlers, hustlers, gamblers,
and freelance lawmen who carried a trigger-happy honor culture into a veritable
blood meridian.

The Gunfighters brilliantly sifts the lies from the truth, giving both elements their due. All the legendary figures are here, and their escapades are told with great flair—good, bad, and ugly. Burrough knits these histories together into something much deeper and more provocative than the sum of its parts. To understand the truth of the Wild West is to understand a crucial dimension of the American story. Americas Biographies & Memoirs Heists & Robberies State & Local True Crime United States Old West Wild West American History
Factual History • Informative Content • Nice Narrative Style • Engaging Storytelling • Refreshing Approach • Good Reader

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Loved the footnotes and references. Big plus for the pace and enunciation making it a pleasurable listen for a septuagenarian.

Lest we forget the things we did not remember.

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Great stories delivered in easy to listen format, not overly analytical or pretentious. Could have gone another five hours happily

Engaging

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The history with all its errors almost comical were it not for the sheer number of murders.

How each character came alive

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I am not sure if it's was the way it was written or performed but it seemed a little to clinical? A ton of great and cool information. Just a little cold...

gunfighters

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Desperately wish this was never ending. Very very good. Love authors personality in this. Great narration also.

Wish it wasn’t over.

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