Tombstone: A Chronicle in Perspective

OH NO ! - Not another Earp book ! This is not just another book about the Earps and Tombstone! It is not yet another retelling of the same (albeit fascinating) stories of the early 1880's in southeastern Arizona. In fact, this book doesn't really tell a story at all! On the contrary, it makes one think (I hope) about how all the stories you've ever ready about Tombstone and the Earps and the Clantons and McLaury's interrelate in the context of time and associations with other people and places and events. When we read books about the Old West, they tend to focus on a particular person, event or concept. They might deal solely with Billy The Kid or Butch and Sundance. They might deal with a single event like the Oklahoma Land Rush or the massacre at Wounded Knee. They might deal solely with concepts like cattle drives or building the railroads. When I first started reading about the settling of the west, I began to wonder how it all fit together and who or what came first. Each book or article I read about the Old West was fascinating in and of itself but, until I started this book and building this time-line, I never really grasped the concept of how it all fit together. Using the "Tombstone Time-Line Concept", showing other Old West, world, national and popculture events alongside Tombstone-related events helped define for me, the Old West, and how it all fit together.