The Last Gunfight - Jeff Guinn

The Last Gunfight

By Jeff Guinn

  • Release Date: 2011-05-17
  • Genre: U.S. History
Score: 4
4
From 99 Ratings

Description

A New York Times bestseller, Jeff Guinn’s definitive, myth-busting account of the most famous gunfight in American history reveals who Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons and McLaurys really were and what the shootout was all about.

On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral would shape how future generations came to view the Old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a frontier populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones. It’s a colorful story—but the truth is even better.

Drawing on new material from private collections—including diaries, letters, and Wyatt Earp’s own hand-drawn sketch of the shootout’s conclusion—as well as archival research, Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different and far more fascinating picture of what actually happened that day in Tombstone and why

Reviews

  • Eye opening

    5
    By Perry Baxter
    Having been a late baby boomer (1956) the "wild west" is imbedded in my mind. This book filled in so many blanks. I've visited Tombstone and much of southern Arizona. I am a career law officer. I can relate to the desire of the Earps to serve and protect and truly understand how easy it is for public opinion to be swayed for or against you through mis steps, mis communication and mis understandings. In turn, I understand how the Clantons and McLaurys would feel "dumped on" by the Earps. How easy it is to allow "politics" to come into play and even exacerbate a touchy situation. Not to mention the testosterone. Occurrences such as these still play a part in our lives. We have learned from the mistakes and successes of all those who have made them before. If anything, the reader should take away a desire to not mimic the mistakes made that created the feud in Tombstone. Many innocent lives were effected. I feel sad for all of the families involved. Thank you for filling in so many blanks. I was so "into" finishing and learning I could not put the book down. In a nut shell, riviting, enlightening, entertaining and educational