The Book of Westerns concentrates on the period between 1939 and the present day, looking at the Western from a wide variety of perspectives and providing in-depth critical analysis of many notable movies up to Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994). The coverage includes such celebrated works as George Stevens's Shane with Alan Ladd as the archetypal solitary Western hero, Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar where the combatants in the final gunfight are Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge, and King Vidor's Duel in the Sun with its orgasmic climax when Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones shoot each other down and then claw their way toward a dying embrace. The text, mainly written by film critics and academics associated with Movie magazine, is aimed at the informed filmgoer as well as the film student and is illustrated throughout with stills that capture the flavor of the Western.