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List Price: $24.95 | | Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Salesrank: 242507
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg brings his eloquence, wit, and on-target perceptions of American life and politics to this fascinating, well-drawn protrait of a twentieth-century hero. In this work of great originality—the biography of an idea—Garry Wills shows how John Wayne came to embody Amercian values and influenced our cultoure to a degree unmatched by any other public figure of his time. In Wills's hands, Waynes story is tranformed into a compelling narrative about the intersection of popular entertainment and political realities in mid-twentieth-century America.
John Waynes America Reviews:
DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME !!! 
2008-01-09 - THIS IS THE WORST BOOK IVE READ IN YEARS. GARRY WILLS BABBLES ON AND ON AND ON. DONT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY ON THIS P.O.S. IF THE DUKE WAS HERE HE WOULD PUNCH THIS GUY ON THE MOUTH! I DONT NORMALLY CARE TO WRITE A REVIEW BUT THIS GUY IS A CLOWN! HIS LONG WINDED RAMBLINGS SEEM TO COME FROM JEALOUSY AND OPINION RATHER THAN THE FACTS ABOUT THE DUKE. IF THIS BOOK IS SUPPOSE TO BE ABOUT JOHN WAYNE'S (AMERICA), THEN ITS WAS WRITTEN BY A TERRORIST
Long on movie-making, short on America 
2006-06-17 - Anyone seriously interested in John Wayne's position as America's icon needs to read this book, which is filled with information about the making of his films and the evolution of his career.
But for the rest of us, the book doesn't come into focus until its conclusion, which, while thought-provoking, comes as an anticlimax. Only at the end does Wills discuss the relationship of Wayne's dominant screen persona with America's self-image. Up till then it's mostly movie-making. All of Wayne's key films are discussed, but almost always with the emphasis on who did what and how. Wills approaches the meaning of the individual films with surprising diffidence for a tough-minded political commentator.
Straightforward and fair-minded though it is, "John Wayne's America" doesn't fulfill the promise of its title.
Almost makes it!
2006-03-07 - I enjoyed the book to some extent but I have a few problems with it. Too often I get the feeling that Wills is driving a tack with a sledge hammer. Far too much on the directors in Wayne's career, especially John Ford, and not enough on Wayne himself. Too much buildup here.
I also disagree with Will's accessment of some of the "important" films in Wayne's career. "Big Jake" was just another "let's crank out a John Wayner" in my opinion. The familiar tension with the female lead that we usually saw with Wayne, a mundane plot, and Richard Boone's portrayl of the villain is so bad it borders on parody. And "Rio Bravo". Critics of Wayne's films seem to love this movie for some reason. It is by far the best of the later Hawks movies. But that isn't saying much. It's an okay movie but that's all. On the other hand I was pleased to see Wills give some ink to "Tall in the Saddle". It amazes me how many so-called John Eayne fans I have encountered who aren't familiar with this film. This is more or less an extended "B" movie but it was well filmed and well casted. And just plain fun to watch. It was important to the development of Wayne as Wills points out. This book is a good read but could have been a lot better. It's very thick in the middle and very thin at the end.
Lots of Backgound
2003-12-06 - John Wayne's America is based on the figure John Wayne. Garry Wills has put so much backgound into this book that it really blowns u away. Not in a bad but the reading of some 300 pages with discriptions of just about everything kinda gets boing after a while. I grew up watching John Wayne with my father and the way that Garry Wills describes him is not what I would picture the duke as being. The book was good though to pass the winter of kansas by. So I'm sure that a more experienced read would come to say that my review was false. However, this is an opinion review and that was my opinion of this book. Garry Wills is a good writer he just doesn't show his best work in this book.
Spotty Trail
2001-08-22 - This is a maddening book, so full of promise it never really delivers on. Yet I've read it twice, something I don't usually do. Though some might argue, the subject is an important one: the mythic stature of John Wayne as American hero. Given his unparalleled popularity over the years, Wayne's elevation poses some serious questions. Namely, how did this fame come about, and what does the elevation of a cowboy actor to national icon reveal about ourselves. Understanding this revered status should at least tell us something about the mind-set of American men, if not women (Wayne has never been as popular with the latter as with the former, Wills observes). I think it helps to get at the way Wills presents the Wayne phenomenon to target three levels.
First, there is Wayne the person, the man. Wills doesn't devote much space to this level, though the book's subtitle, i.e. "The Politics of Celebrity", might suggest otherwise. Very little is presented of Wayne's personal life or controversial political stances. Most of what is presented are efforts to either debunk popular fictions from the early years, or to pass along opinions of others, which about the man are usually unflattering, (Ford's disapproval of Wayne's lack of war service). Clearly the author believes Wayne's mythic status comes from the screen and not from the private individual.
The second level is Wayne the actor, the commanding screen presence. Despite many insights along the way, Wills falters badly by spending way too much time on seemingly irrelevant details of John Ford's personality and film style, many of which (the diagrams of seating arrangements in "Stagecoach", for example), shed no light on Wayne the actor. Wills' s preoccupation with Ford to the exclusion of Wayne is a serious defect, which may imply that the author found Ford the more compelling of the two, and could not restrain himself. Yet it is not Ford who is enshrined in the national consciousness, it is Wayne.
The third level is the most important: Wayne the mythic figure, the mirror in which we catch our own reflection. Here Wills both succeeds and fails. He succeeds by linking the Wayne figure with some of our most enduring national myths: unbounded western horizons, uncorrupted primitive, Jeffersonian ideal. But here in the book's last chapter, which should bring together the preceding 300 pages but which is only 12 pages long, there is no real synthesis of what has gone before. There is no effort at showing how, despite the many pages given over to him, Ford' romanticized vision of the Old West shapes the Wayne myth, or how that same vision embodies enduring national myths, or how to a lesser degree Hawk's vision taps into those same legends through the Wayne figure. In short, Wills fails at this crucial third stage to adequately fill in the blanks between Wayne the actor and Wayne the myth.
I get the feeling the author intended a deeper work than is there in the result, but instead got sidetracked on underdeveloped details that end up shedding little light on the Wayne phenomenon. Too bad, because there is an important project still unfulfilled. Certainly Wills has the skills to bring it off. I only wish he had.
