Cowboys as Cold Warriors

Emerging from World War Two with superpower status, the United States entered a period of economic prosperity, but the stresses and contradictions of the Cold War cast a shadow over American life. Not coincidentally the same period marked the heyday of the western film. Cowboys as Cold Warriors examines many of the significant westerns released between 1946 and 1962, showing how they responded to and influenced the cultural climate of the United States. Discussing a dozen films in detail and connecting them to numerous others, author Stanley Corkin considers the ways in which these cultural productions both embellished the myth of the American frontier and commented on the developments of the era in which they were made.