Gangter To Gangsta: The Romantic Outlaw Of Yesterday And Today

Larry Mantle discusses the notion that Americans have, for centuries, romanticized, mythologized, and commodified the criminal cultures of the American West. The guests will explore the history of the Western outlaw from the criminal gangs of the nineteenth century, through the Jewish mobsters that helped build Las Vegas, to today’s hip-hop “gangsta” culture, and examine why we’re fascinated with American outlaws. Larry talks with Paul Hutton, Ph.D., University of New Mexico and former President of the Western History Association, and Raymond Codrington, Ph.D., Assistant Curator and Director of the Julian Dixon Institute of Cultural Studies at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.