Culture Change and the American Cowboy

Abstract

The modern American cowboy is an anachronism, or, in the words to a song by Kris Kristofferson, "a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction." On the rodeo
circuit, you can find bull—riders from Brooklyn; on the range are ranchers riding herd on Honda motorcycles or surveying their spread from the cockpit of a Cessna. The striking thing about this blend of past and present is that it does not seem unusual at all, particularly to those who are doing it.