Publisher's Synopsis
In American popular culture, Wyatt Earp, a law officer in 19th-century Dodge City and Tombstone, is an icon of justice. The subject of dozens of films, his memory has been invoked in battles against organized crime (in the 1930s), communism (in the 1950s), and Al Qaeda (after 2001). Yet as Andrew C. Isenberg shows in this book, the Hollywood Earp is largely a fiction created by Earp himself, whose life was characterized not by an unflinching devotion to law and order by inconstancy, defiance of authority, and repeated self-invention.
