The Wild West is an incredible photo history featuring rare photos from the collection of Robert McCubbin, publisher emeritus of True West magazine. Historian and raconteur Michael Wallis provides an entertaining and informative narrative for each illustration. 
 While the book is designed as a story/picture-a-day book, it's engaging enough to be read as an overview of the colorful American West. Readers learn stories bawdier than fiction, more tragic than drama. 
 The entries skew towards the Southwest and Southern Great Plains and feature archetypal Western characters: lawmen, outlaws, Indians, gamblers, cowboys, soiled doves, etc. Some readers would prefer more about the Pacific West and Northwest. As far as the archetypes go, the book proves fiction of the American West hardly stands up to the real thing.