John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was

Rating:
Summary: JACK BURROWS/JOHN RINGO
Review: A well researched and (mostly) interesting book, although even an Englishman like myself had to have a dictionary to hand which made it hardgoing at times! (Where did he learn all those words?!!) Dr Burrows did tend to knock other authors of Western history, but I guess that is useful as we are at least able to take the mentioned books with a 'pinch of salt'.

Rating:
Summary: JACK BURROWS/JOHN RINGO
Review: A well researched and (mostly) interesting book, although even an Englishman like myself had to have a dictionary to hand which made it hardgoing at times! (Where did he learn all those words?!!) Dr Burrows did tend to knock other authors of Western history, but I guess that is useful as we are at least able to take the mentioned books with a 'pinch of salt'.

Rating:
Summary: John Ringo : The Gunfighter Who Never Was
Review: I found this book to be very informative and I discovered many facets of information about this Old West character that have been scare to non-existent in other books about this portion of our history. As some other readers have commented, the only thing I can find distracting about the style of writing was that I was finding myself constantly having to re-read passages to get the point or look up a great many words the author used to find their meaning and I pride myself in having a good command of vocabulary. I don't believe this was necessary for this topic as plain language would have sufficed. Other than this observation, I believe the author was very thorough in his research and would highly recommend it to other readers.

Rating:
Summary: Needed a better editor than it got
Review: I have the distinct feeling that John Ringo the Gunfighter Who Never Was is an old dissertation rendered into a book by a university press interested in promoting works of local history. It reminds me so much of my own history advisor, Tom B. Jones' words to me when picking a topic for my master's thesis, "keep it narrow, keep it simple, get it done!"

The subject is certainly a narrow one. John Ringo was one of the lessor gunfighters among a panoply of truly famous names: Wyatt Earp, John Westly Hardin, Doc Holliday, Jessie James, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, etc. While he may have been in the wings, he took noticeable part in almost none of the really graphic events of his time. The most noteworthy event of his life was his apparent decision to commit suicide.

The topic can hardly be but simple; the author himself admits that there is little concrete data available on Ringo, and he proceeds to demolish most of it in his critique of these sources, some of which are poorly written western adventure novels. To his credit Professor Burrows did manage to locate and critique several Ringo family resources that, for various reasons (for which check out the chapter notes) had not been used previously in an academic fashion.

The coverage of the project took a short 203 pages. It took that many mostly because the author repeats the same information in a variety of poses and with more adjectives than I've seen since attempting to wade through an old harlequin romance at the behest of a friend. Sometimes the sentences are so long one loses sight of where one was going by the end of them. And words? I read voraciously and have a substantial vocabulary-I was once hailed as a genius by a coworker for using "sanguine" correctly in a sentence!-but some of Dr. Burrows' choices suggested that a thesaurus was ever at hand least he be too repetitious.

I do think the book is an important one. It sets much of the mystery of the subject into perspective, which most of the written works heretofore have not. Certainly the on-going saga of the Ringo family's Victorian shame over the black sheep in its midst is certainly an interesting one. The difficult events of Ringo's early life, brings one to wonder how many of the misfits of the old west-or of our own time for that matter-grew out of stressful events suffered during early adolescence, events over which they had little or no control.

I think that what the book needed was a better and more critical editor than it got.

Rating:
Summary: Needed a better editor than it got
Review: I have the distinct feeling that John Ringo the Gunfighter Who Never Was is an old dissertation rendered into a book by a university press interested in promoting works of local history. It reminds me so much of my own history advisor, Tom B. Jones' words to me when picking a topic for my master's thesis, "keep it narrow, keep it simple, get it done!"

The subject is certainly a narrow one. John Ringo was one of the lessor gunfighters among a panoply of truly famous names: Wyatt Earp, John Westly Hardin, Doc Holliday, Jessie James, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill, etc. While he may have been in the wings, he took noticeable part in almost none of the really graphic events of his time. The most noteworthy event of his life was his apparent decision to commit suicide.

The topic can hardly be but simple; the author himself admits that there is little concrete data available on Ringo, and he proceeds to demolish most of it in his critique of these sources, some of which are poorly written western adventure novels. To his credit Professor Burrows did manage to locate and critique several Ringo family resources that, for various reasons (for which check out the chapter notes) had not been used previously in an academic fashion.

The coverage of the project took a short 203 pages. It took that many mostly because the author repeats the same information in a variety of poses and with more adjectives than I've seen since attempting to wade through an old harlequin romance at the behest of a friend. Sometimes the sentences are so long one loses sight of where one was going by the end of them. And words? I read voraciously and have a substantial vocabulary-I was once hailed as a genius by a coworker for using "sanguine" correctly in a sentence!-but some of Dr. Burrows' choices suggested that a thesaurus was ever at hand least he be too repetitious.

I do think the book is an important one. It sets much of the mystery of the subject into perspective, which most of the written works heretofore have not. Certainly the on-going saga of the Ringo family's Victorian shame over the black sheep in its midst is certainly an interesting one. The difficult events of Ringo's early life, brings one to wonder how many of the misfits of the old west-or of our own time for that matter-grew out of stressful events suffered during early adolescence, events over which they had little or no control.

I think that what the book needed was a better and more critical editor than it got.

Rating:
Summary: You've got to be kidding me
Review: In my opinion Johnny Ringo was by far the fastest and deadliest draw that ever lived, in fact if he and Doc Holliday would have had a real showdown Ringo would have beat him, it wouldn't have been close, Doc's shot might have landed just short of Ringo's feet because Doc was pretty fast but he wasn't faster than Ringo. The only reason Ringo died when he did was because he commited suicide, if Doc did murder Ringo he waited until Ringo was drunk and helpless

Rating:
Summary: Not Enough Information
Review: Jack Burrows' "John Ringo: The Gunfighter Who Never Was" is a well written book that focuses on what other writers have had to say about this legendary figure. Unfortunately, Burrows' concentration on the words written by others, overall detracts the book from telling readers about who John Ringo was or what he did during his life. The first impression one receives is that there is not much information about Ringo and that his reputation was largely achieved through the writings of latter day authors. Yet, Burrows' critic of other writers seems excessive at times. A reader who has little knowledge of Ringo other than his glorified reputation generally will like this book. But, there is far more information known about John Ringo's life than what is presented in Burrows' book. While I do recommend Jack Burrows' book, readers interested in an in-depth presentation of John Ringo's life must look elsewhere. Fortunately, biographies of John Ringo are not lacking. After reading Jack Burrows' book, readers should read Steve Gatto's recently released book "Johnny Ringo." When it comes to presenting information about John Ringo's activities throughout his life, Gatto's "Johnny Ringo" is vastly superior to Burrows' "John Ringo."

Rating:
Summary: John Ringo: The Biography That Never Was
Review: This book should have been called John Ringo: The Biography that Never Was.

Burrows spends most of time telling the reader why everybody else's biography of Ringo is wrong, and spends very little time telling us who John Ringo really was. In some ways I empathize with the author because there really is no substantial or reliable primary sources for a biography of Ringo. But frankly, having read a lot of history of the Old West, nothing in this book is new or revealing. While the exegesis and (extreme) criticism of Ringo's biographers was somewhat interesting -- it really becomes somewhat tedious.

Burrows could boiled this entire work down to a nice article in an academic historical journal -- and quite frankly probably should have.

Rating:
Summary: Not Enough Information
Review: This is the book that started the new age of Old West analysis. Almost everything good that followed Jack Burrows' John Ringo owes it a sizeable debt. The most engrossing and best written account of the life and legend of an Old West frontier figure ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Bring a dictionary!
Review: Wow...The author spends most of his book bashing other authors and using a language I later found out was english! I spent 30% of my time looking up definitions. Thanks US public school system!
I would recommend this book to western history fiends or the like, but not to the reader actually seeking information (the very idea!) on the elusive John Ringo.