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ONEBOOKAZ for Kids

The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral -- And How It Changed the American West

Synopsis

On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral shaped how future generations came to view the old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became legendary, symbolic of a West populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones. It's colorful, but the truth is even better.

As The Last Gunfight makes clear, the real story of the O.K. Corral and the West is far different from what we've been led to believe. Combining newfound facts with cinematic storytelling, Jeff Guinn depicts an accidental if inevitable clash between competing social, political, and economic forces representing the old West of ruggedly independent ranchers and cowboys and the emerging new West of wealthy mining interests and well-heeled town folk. Drawing on new material from private collections, documentary research in Tombstone and Arizona archives, and dozens of interviews, the author gives a startlingly different and more fascinating picture of what the West was like, who the involved parties were, what actually happened on that cold day in Tombstone, and why.

  Read an excerpt
From THE LAST GUNFIGHT by Jeff Guinn. Copyright © 2011 by 24Words
LLC. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Read reviews

“A gripping revisionist account of the famed 1881 showdown....Exhaustively researched, stylishly written....As grimly compelling as a Greek tragedy.”--Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“The most thorough account of the gunfight and its circumstances ever published.”--The Wall Street Journal

“Guinn...delivers another double-barrel blast of history and true crime....Superbly detailed....A thorough, thrilling account of the crime and its influence on the history of the West....Absolutely buy this dazzler.”--Library Journal Express (Starred Review)

“An absorbing, meticulous account of the famous O.K. Corral gunfight as it really happened....Guinn places his complex and nuanced story firmly within the context of the evolving Western frontier....A great story.”--Kirkus Reviews

About the author

Jeff Guinn is the author of Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie & Clyde, which was a finalist for an Edgar Award in 2010. An award-winning author of both fiction and nonfiction, he was books editor and senior writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and has appeared on numerous media shows. He lives in Fort Worth, Texas.