Shane: History, Fiction, Film

TK-page paperback / 5" x 8" / ISBN 9781589882188
Publication Date: 11/24/2026 (available for preorder)

What makes a movie “great”? Which films would you describe that way? Historian Bruce Kuklick’s account of the 1953 Western Shane explains how history, fiction, and movie making combined to create truly great art. The script was based on the novel Shane by Jack Schaefer which drew from historical happenings in Wyoming’s Johnson County in the 1880s. The acting of Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon DeWilde, and Jack Palance was just right. The cinematography captures the extraordinary beauty of the Wyoming landscape. And finally the movie dramatizes the conflict between two ways of life—wide open cattle ranching versus small-time farming—that fought for dominance as pioneers moved into the land of the West. Follow Bruce Kuklick as he reveals the how this cinematic magic happened.

Bruck Kuklick is the author of fourteen books including A Political History of the USA: One Nation Under God (Bloomsbury Academic), now in its third edition; Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture (University of Chicago Press); and The Fighting Sullivans: How Hollywood and the Military Make Heroes (University Press of Kansas). His books have been translated into Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, and Spanish. Kuklick is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now Emeritus. He lives in Philadelphia.