Reviewed by:

• What Is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination by Josh Garrett-Davis
• Richard Aquila

What Is a Western? is a compelling book at once far more and less than the title suggests. Only 141 pages long, it includes an introduction, twenty-one brief chapters, and an afterword providing a fascinating whirlwind tour of the mythic West, with stops along the way that allow readers to sample western literature, history, folklore, pop culture, and more.

The introduction sets the stage for the idiosyncratic journey. Josh Garrett-Davis suggests that a "Western" is part of a genre that includes stories, novels, movies, TV shows, music, and other forms of popular culture that usually focus on cowboy adventures in the mythic West. The term "Western" has also been used, however, to describe "any art made in or about North America west of, say, the Mississippi River" (3). Such a broad definition, he admits, makes it difficult if not impossible to define "Westerns." The problem is exacerbated by other questions. What was or is the West? Is it a geographic location or a West of the imagination? Who lived there? Does a Western have to include stock characters like cowboys and Indians? Or readily identifiable elements such as guns, holsters, hats, boots, saddles, and horses? Are Westerns unique pop culture phenomena linked to specific periods in American history? Are Westerns still alive today? If so, how do they compare with Westerns of ten, twenty, or fifty years ago?

The book is divided into six main parts. Part 1—titled "Cowboys and Aliens"—explores how images of the West have been transformed in the years since World War II. It covers images of the West worldwide and shows how both the mythic [End Page 389] West and the writing of western history have changed, becoming more diverse and multicultural over the past few decades. Part 2, "Native Wests," considers the changing roles of Native Americans in Westerns, western history, and literature. The three chapters in part 3 comprise a "Borderlands Trilogy," examining the West as multicultural borderlands where diverse peoples and cultures interact. Part 4—"Three Takes on Oklahoma"—offers insights about the regional West through chapters that cover Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical and movie, folklore told by an Okie migrant, and Woody Guthrie's music. Part 5, "Homesteads," details how the environment shaped western life, and part 6, "Fatal Environments," examines the enduring nature of the mythic West.

The twenty-one chapters cover a wide range of subjects and are based on both traditional and nontraditional forms of evidence. Garrett-Davis analyzes scholarly histories, novels, poems, biographies, folktales, oral histories, and artifacts. But he also gleans important insights from unexpected places, including but not limited to movies, Broadway musicals, pop music, country music, folk songs, and heavy metal. He strikes gold, for instance, digging for clues about the cultural history of the American West/borderlands in the music of groups like The Highwaymen and Calexico or films such as The Frisco Kid (1979) and Posse (1993).

The book is enhanced by the author's lively writing style and his knack for illuminating specific items to get at broader themes. Even the illustrations (of artifacts from the Autry Museum of the American West, where Garrett-Davis is a curator) reinforce his ideas. For example, a movie poster of the 1922 Western The Crimson Skull reveals the era's racial attitudes. An Indian Chief Roadmaster motorcycle offers opportunities to discuss Indian stereotypes as well as the symbolic use of motorcycles as modern-day horses.

This volume should appeal to scholars and general readers interested in Westerns, popular culture, and American studies, as well as western literature and history. "The title of this book is a question," writes the author in the introduction. "Not a rhetorical question but an open-ended one that will not be answered by the last page" (3). True to his word, Josh Garrett-Davis does not provide a definitive answer to, What Is a Western? But he does offer provocative [End Page 390] questions and an array of...

审核人：

• 什么是西方？乔什·加勒特·戴维斯（Josh Garrett-Davis）的《地区，流派，想象力》
• 理查德·阿奎拉（Richard Aquila）

什么是西方？一本引人入胜的书，远远超出了书名的含义。它只有141页，包括引言，二十一个简短的章节和一个后记，提供神话般的西方神话般的旋风之旅，并在途中停下来让读者品尝西方文学，历史，民俗，流行文化和更多的。

引言为特质之旅奠定了基础。乔什·加勒特·戴维斯（Josh Garrett-Davis）提出，“西方人”是这类小说的一部分，其中包括故事，小说，电影，电视节目，音乐和其他形式的大众文化，这些文化通常关注神话般的西方牛仔冒险。但是，“西方”一词也用于描述“在密西西比河以西的北美地区或北美附近制造的任何艺术品”（3）。他承认，如此宽泛的定义使得很难甚至不可能定义“西方人”。其他问题加剧了这个问题。什么是西方？是地理位置还是想象力的西部？谁住在那里？西方人是否必须包括牛仔和印第安人这样的股票人物？或易于识别的元素，例如枪支，皮套，帽子，靴子，马鞍，和马？西方人独特的流行文化现象是否与美国历史上的特定时期联系在一起？今天西方人还活着吗？如果是这样，他们如何与十，二十或五十年前的西方人作比较？

这本书分为六个主要部分。第1部分（标题为“牛仔和外星人”）探讨了自第二次世界大战以来，西方的图像是如何转变的。它涵盖了全世界西方的图像，并展示了两者的神话[End Page 389]西方和西方历史的写作发生了变化，在过去的几十年中变得更加多样化和多元文化。第2部分，“西方原住民”，探讨了美洲原住民在西方人，西方历史和文学中的角色变化。第3部分中的三章组成了“边疆三部曲”，将西方视为多元文化的边疆，在这里，各种民族和文化相互影响。第四部分-“俄克拉荷马州的三部曲”-通过章节介绍罗杰斯和哈默斯坦的百老汇音乐和电影，由Okie移民讲述的民俗知识和Woody Guthrie的音乐，对西部地区提供一些见识。第5部分“家园”详细介绍了环境如何塑造西方生活，第6部分“致命环境”详细介绍了神话般的西方的持久性。

第二十一章涵盖了广泛的主题，并基于传统和非传统形式的证据。加勒特·戴维斯（Garrett-Davis）分析了学术历史，小说，诗歌，传记，民间故事，口述历史和人工制品。但他也从意想不到的地方收集重要见解，包括但不限于电影，百老汇音乐剧，流行音乐，乡村音乐，民歌和重金属。举例来说，他以黄金出击，在《公路人》和《卡莱克西科》等乐队的音乐或《弗里斯科·基德》（1979）和《波斯》（1993）等电影中寻找有关美国西部/边境地区文化历史的线索。

这本书因作者活泼的写作风格和他的独具匠心的技巧得到了充实，使他能够阐明特定的主题，从而获得更广泛的主题。甚至（加勒特·戴维斯（Garrett-Davis）担任策展人的美国西部Autry博物馆的文物插图）也加强了他的想法。例如，1922年的《绯红色骷髅》的电影海报揭示了该时代的种族态度。印度首席Roadmaster摩托车提供了讨论印度定型观念以及将摩托车象征性地用作现代马匹的机会。

该书应该吸引对西方，流行文化和美国研究以及西方文学和历史感兴趣的学者和一般读者。作者在引言中写道：“这本书的标题是个问题。” “不是一个口头上的问题，而是一个开放式的问题，最后一页将不会回答”（3）。忠实于他的话，约什·加勒特·戴维斯（Josh Garrett-Davis）并未就“什么是西方人？但他确实提出了挑衅性的[End Page 390]问题，并提出了一系列...