Heroic cowboys on horseback. Bands of outlaws. Brawls in small town saloons.

This is the Wild West as popular culture remembers it. But was it really as “wild” as we’ve been led to believe? Did the violence of the frontier truly revolve around outlaws and lawmen... or were much larger forces shaping life on the Frontier?

To explore this question, we welcome Tore Olsson as our guest for this episode. Tore is Professor of History at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and his most recent work is Red Dead’s History: A Video Game, An Obsession, and America’s Violent Past.

Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

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