Buffalo Bill and the Making of the Wild West Legend

Buffalo Bill turned frontier grit into global showmanship.

An 1899 poster advertising “Buffalo Bill's Wild West.” On the right is Buffalo Bill Cody, the star of the show. MPI/Getty Images

Commentary

In his latest book “The Undiscovered Country,” historian Paul Andrew Hutton uses seven very different individuals to frame the story of the American West. One of these, William F. Cody, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill, was a particularly interesting blend of the authentic and the fictional.