CHOICE, March 2005
"...an informative case study for interpreting the evidence that house lot surveys may yield."

Salt Lake City Tribune, March 20, 2005
"...Cristy gives Russell fans and critics a new perspective on the artist."

Stanford Magazine, March/April 2005
"in this well-illustrated biography, Cristy focuses on Russell's witty writings on the West as it really was."

Book Description
Well known for his sketches, paintings, and sculptures of the Old West, Charles M. Russell (1864–1926) was also an accomplished author in the humorous genre known as "local color." Raphael Cristy sorts Russell’s writings into four general categories: serious Indian stories, men encountering wildlife, cattle range characters, and nineteenth-century westerners facing twentieth-century challenges. Russell’s art is often misinterpreted as mere longing for a fading open-range west, but his writings tell a different story. Cristy shows how Russell amused his peers with stories that also delivered sharp observations of Euro-American suppression of Indians and humorous treatment of wilderness and range issues plus the emergence of women and urbanization as bewildering agents of change in the modern West.

About the Author
Raphael James Cristy of Albuquerque received his bachelor’s degree in English literature at Stanford, an master’s degree in American history at the University of Montana, and a doctorate in American history at the University of New Mexico. He has performed "Charlie Russell’s Yarns" since 1976 in a variety of venues: the Northern Appalachian Storytelling Festival in Pennsylvania, the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, the Palm Springs Desert Arts Museum, Michael Martin Murphy’s WESTFEST, the Fringe Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, and Australia’s Festival of Sydney.

FROM THE PUBLISHER