Buffalo Bill's British Wild West

Very well researched history of Buffalo Bill's Wild West three British tours that took place between 1887 and 1904. I had seen odd photographs of the Wild West performers in various towns and cities but hadn't realised that their last tour covered the whole of Great Britain stopping in 130 towns and cities and covering over 4,000 miles by rail from Cornwall in the south to Scotland in the north, Wales in the west and Yorkshire in the east. The shows, which would have been spectacular even by today's standards, featured genuine native American "Indians", frontiersmen and women and sharpshooters such as Annie Oakley. The book also tells the colourful life story of William Cody from poor beginnings to millionaire and eventual bankruptcy, which meant he had to perform for the rest of his life. It also gives some details of his other European tours and is crammed full of photographs sourced from libraries and private collections. All in all a thoroughly good read.

Gallop's book stands in isolation as the only book I have been able to find which focuses chiefly on the British leg of Bill Cody's extensive travels to his Wild West show, I am grateful I did not let the shameful 1 star rating currently enjoyed by the book deter my purchase. The review being made based on an interview given by Gallop is irrelevant, he claims Gallop used terminology degrading terms to describe Native Americans if this is the case then there is no evidence of it in the book. Though Gallop uses the term Indian in the book he makes clear in the introduction that this is to enable the sources quoted to flow and speak in there own words, the book is certainly not racist nor does it place Cody on a holier than thou pedestal. Overall the book is proving incredibly useful for my dissertation on the topic of Cody's impact on Victorian England and I can wholly recommend the text to anyone with even a vague interest in the topic.

Great if interested in USA and uk history

Husband loves it thanks

[...]Well I stumbled on this radio interview from the author talking about the book but the text included with it recommending the book really annoyed me intensely. To read first nations plains people being referred to as " savage Indians " and for this reason entirely I would not advocate bothering to read this book. These people are still suffering extreme poverty and oppression today and in my view its shameful that Buffalo Bill built himself a name from a show that celebrated what was really was the attempted extermination of indigenous cultures.

This is a great book. I am very surprised there are not a lot of enthusiastic 4 and 5 star reviews.It tells how Buffalo Bill and the wild west show went over seas, particularly to England. If you ever had a basic interest in the Wild West Show, you are bound to like this. I never even realized they left the country, but apparently there was a jubilee celebration for the Queen of England and they went there alright. Some of the more memorable parts are stories about some of the Indian chiefs, and other members of the company. It 'conveys' a sense of the operations of the the show, and gives you a sort of familiarity with the place, almost as if you, like many of the other crowd members were repeat visitors. It has a nice picture section with a lot of pictures. So basically, it probably might not change your life significantly, but for what it is, it is a really good book.