John Wills is Reader in American History and Culture at the
University of Kent. He is the author of Gamer Nation: Video Games
and American Culture and Disney Culture.
Esther Wright is Lecturer in Digital History at Cardiff
University. She is the author of Rockstar Games and American
History: Promotional Materials and the Construction of
Authenticity.
“Video games like the Red Dead series have supercharged the
significance of (re)imagined Wests and will continue to do so for
the foreseeable future. Like the amply filled satchels and saddle
bags of Red Harlow, Arthur Morgan, and John Marson, this collection
has you covered, delivering an exquisitely intersectional range of
scholarly work on a paradigm-shifting addition to the Western
imaginary in the 21st century. Saddle up, pard! Your trail to
exploring video-game Wests should start here.”——Stefan “Steve”
Rabitsch, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University
of Oslo, co-founder of the European Association for American
Studies “West of the Rest” network
“This volume is a timely intervention that explores one of the
biggest historical game franchises through a myriad of lenses that
demonstrate the complexity and impact of the games and the
discourses from which they draw. In their careful arrangement of
the book, Wills and Wright have shown how video games, and in
particular Red Dead, are the new frontier for the ongoing
construction of the historical West in both the US and
international imaginary.”—Adam Chapman
“This collection provides a wide-ranging treatment of Rockstar’s
Red Dead franchise. The essays here offer serious meditation on a
persistent fascination with the mythic West in the popular
imagination. Overall, a valuable contribution to the growing field
of contemporary (and historical) game studies.”
— Matthew Carter, Senior Lecturer in Film at Manchester
Metropolitan University and author of Myth of the Western: New
Perspectives on Hollywood's Frontier Narrative.
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