A newly published article by Anne Hyde, Colorado College professor of history and director of the Crown Faculty Center, looks at HBO’s “Deadwood” series through a historical lens. The article, “Deadwood as History: What the Show Got Right About the Old West – and What it Missed,” appears in the current issue of Foreign Affairs and examines the historical underpinnings of the show, which aired from 2004 until 2006.
Hyde writes that as compelling as the show “Deadwood” is, “it only gestures at the historical forces that shaped the real-world Old West: military conquest, industrialization, and ethnic conflict. Complex phenomena such as those undercut the notion of the individual taking control of his or her own destiny, a trope at the heart of every Western.”
Hyde’s book “Empires, Nations & Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860” won the 2012 Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
The article can be viewed at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137846/anne-hyde/deadwood-as-history