Red Dead Redemption

History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West

By: John Wills - editor, Esther Wright - editor

Narrated by: Andrew Joseph Perez

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history.

Drawing on game studies, Western history, American studies, and cultural studies, the authors train a wide-ranging, deeply informed analytic perspective on the Red Dead franchise—from its earliest incarnation to the latest, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). Their intersecting chapters put the series in the context of American history, culture, and contemporary media, with inquiries into issues of authenticity, realism, the meaning of play and commercial promotion, and the relationship between the game and the wider cultural iterations of the classic Western. The contributors also delve into the role the series' development has played in recent debates around working conditions in the gaming industry and gaming culture.

©2023 the University of Oklahoma Press (P)2023 Tantor

Be ready for disappointment.

I was initially looking forward to this, but the author felt it necessary to negatively criticize everything about the RDR franchise and nearly every other western over the last 100 or so years. I could only stand it for about an hour or so with zero history or interesting facts within that time. The narrator was fine it was the book itself I took issue with.

Complete garbage

A moronic take on the games and the western genre as a whole. more interested in the skin color of the characters than in any actual storyline. The introduction is all you need to hear to know that this book is a waste of a credit.

Do not waste your money.

The first hour, be prepared to hear "straight white male", a 100 times and not in a positive light. I wanted a book delving into one of my favorite entertainment properties, not a college essay on why the genre is problematic because of all the straight white men characters. I've never been more disappointed in a book in all my life.