Cover image for Sorrow of the earth : Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the tragedy of show business
Sorrow of the earth : Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the tragedy of show business
Title:
Sorrow of the earth : Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the tragedy of show business
Author:
Vuillard, Éric, author.
Personal Author:
Uniform Title:
Tristesse de la terre. English
Publication Information:
London : Pushkin Press, 2016.

©2016
Physical Description:
155 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Summary:
Buffalo Bill was the prince of show business. His spectacular Wild West shows were performed to packed houses across the world, holding audiences spellbound with their grand re-enactments of tales from the American frontier. For Bill gave the crowds something they'd never seen before: real-life Indians. This historical re-imagining tells the story of the Native Americans swallowed up by Buffalo Bill's great entertainment machine. Of Chief Sitting Bull, paraded in theatres to boos and catcalls for fifty dollars a week. Of a baby Lakota girl, found under her mother's frozen body, adopted and displayed on the stage. Of the last few survivors of Wounded Knee, hired to act out the horrific massacre of their tribe as entertainment. And of Buffalo Bill Cody himself, hamming it to the last, even as it consumed him.
General Note:
Originally published in French as Tristesse de la terre in 2014.
Language:
English
Contents:
The Museum of Mankind -- What is the essence of spectacle? -- An actor -- Buffalo Bill in Alsace-Lorraine -- The Massacre at Wounded Knee -- Buying a child -- The "Battle" of Wounded Knee -- The town of Cody -- Reality isn't what it used to be -- The princes of entertainment die in sorrow -- Histories -- Snow
ISBN:
9781782272212
Format :
Book