Lee Clark Mitchell argues in this study that is not stereotypical props and images that give Westerns their perennial appeal, but the genre's deftness in addressing the fears and obsessions of its (eastern) audience. Over the years no obsession has figured more prominently, asserts Mitchell, than the question of what it means to be a man. Ranging from the novels of James Fenimore Cooper to Zane Grey, and from classic films like "High Noon" to spaghetti Westerns like "The Wild Bunch", Mitchell seeks to show how Westerns helped assuage a series of crises in American culture, including debates about nationalism, suffragetism, the white slave trade and liberal social policy.