| International Standard Book Number |
9780593537862 electronic book
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| International Standard Book Number |
9780593537855 hardcover
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| International Standard Book Number |
0593537858 hardcover
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| Personal Name |
Cozzens, Peter, 1957- author.
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| Title Statement |
Deadwood : gold, guns, and greed in the American West / Peter Cozzens.
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| Edition Statement |
First hardcover edition.
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| Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, and Copyright Notice |
New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.
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| Physical Description |
xix, 404 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 25 cm.
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| General Note |
"A Borzoi book." -- Title page verso.
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| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [351]-396) and index.
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| Formatted Contents Note |
List of maps -- Prologue -- Part I: Visions of Deadwood (ca. 1770-April 1876). Paha Sapa ; The new El Dorado ; No sale ; Gold in the gulch -- Part II: A town built on gold (Mary 1876-February 1877). Centennial town ; Lies and legends ; "Take that, damn you" ; Lakota autumn ; The Montana touch ; The day of jubilee ; A hard winter -- Part III: A tumultuous adolescence (March-December 1877). Autocrats and tenderfeet ; Deadwood's Chinatown ; The brigands of the Black Hills ; The most diabolical town on Earth ; San Francisco capitalists and soiled doves ; Reckonings -- Part IV: From adolescence to ashes (January 1878-September 1879). Coming of age ; The treasure coach ; A solid country ; The great water fight ; Black Friday -- Epilogue.
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| Summary, Etc. |
"Sifting through layers and layers of myth and legend -- from nineteenth-century dime novels like Deadwood Dick, to HBO prestige dramas to the casino billboards outside of present-day Deadwood -- Peter Cozzens unveils the true face of Deadwood, South Dakota, the storied mining town that sprang up in early 1876 and came raining down in ashes only three years later, destined to become food for the imagination and a nostalgic landmark that now brings in more than two and a half million visitors each years. That Western romance, we're reminded by Cozzens -- the prizewinning author of The Earth Is Weeping -- retains its allure only as long as we willfully ignore the town's foundational sins. Built on land brazenly stolen from the Lakotas, Deadwood was not merely a place where outlaws lurked, like Tombstone or Dodge City, but was itself an outlaw enterprise, not part of any U.S. territory or subject to U.S. laws or governance. This gave rise to the gunslinging, stagecoach robbing, whiskey guzzling, rampant prostitution, and gambling Deadwood is known for. But it also bred a self-reliance and a spirit of cooperation unique on the frontier, and made it an exceptionally welcoming place for Black Americans and Chinese immigrants at a time of deep-seated discrimination. The first book to tell this complex story in full, Deadwood reveals how one frontier town came to embody the best and worst of the West -- a relic of humanity's eternal quest to create order from chaos, a greater good from individual greed, and security from violence."-- Provided by publisher.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Frontier and pioneer life South Dakota Deadwood.
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| Subject Added Entry - Geographical Term |
West (U.S.) History. 19th century
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| Subject Added Entry - Geographical Term |
Deadwood (S.D.) History 19th century.
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| Index Term-Genre/Form |
Informational works.
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