Why read No Duty to Retreat?

Book cover of No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society

Book description

No Duty to Retreat takes as its starting-point the increased popularity in American society of the old English common-law concept that a person under physical attack has the right to stand his ground, defend himself, and even kill his assailant in self-defence in certain circumstances. This doctrine came to public…

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Why read it?

1 author picked No Duty to Retreat as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Tore C. Olsson

Author

Was the West of the late 1800s truly as violent as we imagine? And if it was, why was it that people were shooting each other on the streets?

Richard Brown’s book provides decisive answers to these questions. Yes, some corners of the West were strikingly bloody. But what spurred this violence wasn’t just personal feuds or poker table rivalries. It was particularly politics that drove the rash of gunfighting in this unsettled era.

Did you know that “Wild Bill” Hickok was a diehard Republican and that most of the people he shot were Democrats? Or, that Jesse James was…

From Tore's list on The best books on the Wild West that turn the myths upside down.