San Antonio College Library

This was America in 1881: a deeply divided nation; vicious politics; a shamelessly partisan media; a president loathed by half the populace. On October 26, when Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers faced off against the Clantons and the McLaurys in Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt Earp was the last man standing, the only one unscathed. The lies began before the smoke cleared ... This is the story of the woman behind the myth: Josephine Sarah Marcus, who loved...

Tombstone, Arizona, in the years 1879 - 1883, was far more complex, interesting, and exciting than the legendary town perpetuated by Hollywood and television.

In popular culture, Wyatt Earp is the hero of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, and a beacon of rough cowboy justice in the tumultuous American West. The subject of dozens of films, he has been invoked in battles against organized crime (in the 1930s), communism (in the 1950s), and al-Qaeda (after 2001). Yet as the historian Andrew C. Isenberg reveals here, the Hollywood Earp is largely a fiction -- one created by none other than...