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"A must-listen for fans of the beloved game."—Den of GeekThis program is read by Roger Clark, the iconic and award-winning full performance-capture actor of Red Dead Redemption 2's Arthur Morgan, who returns to the wildly dramatic and gritty world of the American frontier in this audiobook edition of Red Dead's History. It also features a prologue and epilogue read by the author.A pathbreaking new way to examine US history, through the lens of a bestselling video gameRed Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II, set in 1911 and 1899, are the most-played American history video games since The Oregon Trail. Beloved by millions, they’ve been widely acclaimed for their realism and attention to detail. But how do they fare as re-creations of history?In this engaging audiobook, award-winning American history professor Tore Olsson takes up that question and more. Weaving the games’ plots and characters into an exploration of American violence between 1870 and 1920, Olsson shows that it was more often disputes over capitalism and race, not just poker games and bank robberies, that fueled the bloodshed of these turbulent years. As such, this era has much to teach us today. From the West to the Deep South to Appalachia, Olsson reveals the gritty and brutal world that inspired the games, but sometimes lacks context and complexity on the digital screen. Colorful, fast-paced, and dramatic, Red Dead’s History sheds light on dark corners of the American past for gamers and history buffs alike.A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press. Read more
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Hardcover
For context, I have played through 'Red Dead Redemption' twice and 'RDR 2' upwards of 5 times. I have obtained the platinum trophies (I play on PlayStation) for both games. Anyone who's played the games, and is familiar with trophy/achievement hunting, knows how big a task that is. 100% completing these games can easily take over 100 hours each using a guide, and plenty more without. Collectively, including my time playing for sheer enjoyment rather than trophies, I have played the 'Red Dead' series for at least 1000 hours. So, before I got my hands on this book, I felt there was nothing left to excite me about the series, other than the quality of the game itself. I've researched most, if not all of the lore. I've found all the treasure and chance encounters with NPCs. I've played with and without cheats activated. I've even experimented with glitches and such. I thought I was done. Then, I caught wind of the existence of Prof. Olsson's book. I ordered it the same day I heard about it. After reading the preface, I was a bit concerned that this book would shoot holes (pun intended) in the old-west fantasy these games have helped create in my mind. A fantasy that I cherish and that, in some ways, have changed me for the better as a person. I didn't want that ruined with hard-to-digest facts about what life was actually like in, and around, the years that the games take place. I was happy in my ignorance, or so I thought. To my surprise (and relief), with each chapter I read, I actually found myself feeling more excited for yet another playthrough of the games, as I gradually began to realize that I would now better understand the references, inspirations and situational relevance. Instead of destroying my Red Dead-born fantasy of the old west, this book actually helps to guide and clarify it. As a Black-American man who is painfully aware that my actual experience in the time period of these games would have been vastly different from my fantasies, I find it helpful to have a better understanding of to what extent, as explained in chapter 8. As a player who did enjoy the later chapters of RDR2 involving the characters Rains Fall and Eagle Flies, I admittedly did not quite understand the significance of those missions beyond my own, very surface-level knowledge of the actual 'Indian Wars'. Now, thanks to this book, those missions will have the impact on me that I believe the game's developers intended. These are just two examples of how thoroughly (yet palatably) 'Red Dead's History' covers and explains the contents of the games. Since reading this book, I've been "Mr. Did-You-Know?" to my poor wife, who is also a gamer, but has yet to play the RDR series. I sense her interest is growing, though, after seeing my rekindled excitement for the games after reading this book. I highly recommend 'Read Dead's History' to anyone with even a modicum of interest in the history of the United States, but I even more highly recommend it to fans of the game who, like most of us, wish we could play the game for the first time again. Reading this book and then re-playing the games with the knowledge the book provides is as close as we're going to get until RDR 3 is hopefully released at some point in the future. A massive thank you to Prof. Tore C. Olsson for this work. I very much envy the lucky students who got to take your college course on the subject.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2024 by Shaka Shaka
Format: Hardcover
I adore this book, it was such a good companion read along with Blood Meridian (and playing the game, of course) I read it and I had the audiobook as well, an experience I recommend for all Red Dead fans because Roger Clark, Arthur Morgan himself, does the narration. While reading this book, it felt as if I was taking a college course on the study of the game with real history. The author was knowledgable on the subject matter and it made for a great reading experience.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2025 by Amber Mars
Format: Hardcover
A great introduction for people who are interested in how historical myths influence video games, and how video games influence history.
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2025 by David Tibbitts
Format: Kindle
A brief history of the setting of Red Dead Redemption. This would be very similar to an introductory course of Western American history in college. The author introduces a topic, supports his thesis, and quickly moves on to the next. A quick and entertaining read covering 21 topics.
Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2024 by Dean
Format: Hardcover
I love the game and I love the book. Very informative. I loved learning about the time period from the Red Dead point of view.
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2025 by Chris
Format: Hardcover
I absolutely enjoyed this book. I'm not a big history person but love RDR I & II, and I thought each chapter was thoughtfully written giving readers a small history lesson on tangible events that go on in the games. My curiosity has opened to wanting to know more about this era. Thank you, Tore Olsson!
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Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2025 by Amazon Customer
Format: Hardcover
Overall, this is a good and fascinating analysis of 1800s America and how it’s portrayed in RDR2. As both someone who played the game and a self-proclaimed history nerd, it was a fascinating read. However, I have two main issues with it. The first is that there is a lot of bias that is mixed into presentation of factual information so that it’s hard to spot, and the second is that the author seems to overlook many parts of the game that would change his conclusions on its historical accuracy. While I think it’s fine for the author to express his political views as they connect to the topics in the book, I think that as someone of his credibility and academic reputation, he has an obligation to clearly denote when he is stating fact and when he is stating his opinion. Throughout the book, he regularly infuses his own political viewpoint into how he presents sometimes controversial historical events in subtle and not well-indicated ways, which in my opinion harms his credibility as an author and the overall points he’s trying to make. For example, in the New Orleans chapter, when discussing the life and death of Robert Charles, an African-American man who acted in self-defense (objectively, this was the case - he pulled out a gun and fired at an officer that had lunged at him, at least according to the book’s description) when attacked by police officers and then fled from a mob for days, the author uses a lot of adjectives that attempt to control how the reader interprets the story. Robert Charles is described in an almost heroic, valiant light, as someone taking “a violent stand” (exact quote) against Jim Crow segregation. While I think this is a reasonable perspective, and personally do agree with some part of it (while I don’t think it was Charles’ intention to challenge Jim Crow, I think he did have the moral high ground, especially due to acting in self-defense), I do not like how the author makes no attempt to separate his personal viewpoint from an objective breakdown of the events. Similar examples are present throughout the book. They make some of his conclusions feel like stretches, as those conclusions come to rely on the assumption that the reader has taken the subjective aspects of the author’s writing as factual information. Come on, Mr. Olsson, you’re a historian - you know the importance of maintaining political neutrality when teaching history. As I wrote earlier, I respect his right to express his personal politics, but he needs to make an effort to distinguish them from the objective information. If an author doesn’t do that - and I hate to throw this buzzword around, but it’s the most accurate term I can think of - then they’re veering into propaganda. Even though I agree with many of Olsson’s opinions, I don’t think they should supersede the need for objectivity. My other main issue with the book is that the author overlooks or doesn’t mention a lot of happenings in the game that would change or even directly contradict his arguments. For example, in the same New Orleans chapter mentioned earlier, Olsson states that in RDR2’s equivalent of New Orleans, Saint Denis, the absence of the French, among other Europeans, is historically inaccurate. However, you can very easily find French-speaking and/or French-accented NPCs all around the city - just greet people on the street, you’ll find them within a minute - and there is an entire multi-part optional quest line where Arthur Morgan helps a Frenchman! In the same chapter yet again, Olsson states that the Van der Linde gang’s shootouts in Saint Denis pale in comparison to specific real-life shootouts between white mobs and African-Americans in New Orleans, in terms of carnage - then in the same breath, lists the casualty figures as in the single digits, conveniently forgetting how he mentioned earlier that the Morgan vs. police shootouts result in dozens upon dozens of casualties. One other thing I’d like to mention, though this is less of an error on Olsson’s part and more a minor consideration I think is worth keeping in mind when reading, is that RDR2’s setting isn’t intended to be a strictly accurate portrayal of the U.S. exactly as it was in 1899. Its goal is more to capture the overall struggles and such of the era of the late 19th century and early 20th; 1899 is the chosen year for the main story because that just works chronologically with the first Red Dead game, and also helps give a measurable reference point to the game’s consistent themes of the “end of an era” and dawn of modernity. Olsson also fails to acknowledge that some of the game’s events can be completed in the epilogue, which is set in 1907 and thus discards some chronological complications that would be present if they were completed in the 1899 part of the game. Taking these factors into account, I don’t believe that the wars between the U.S. military and Native Americans, and presence of the KKK, among other things, are as out of place as Olsson argues, though I certainly understand why he makes that argument. The states are also fictional for good reason - it gives Rockstar a little more freedom to bump things around a few years before or after they happened in real-life states. Olsson does a good job through much of the book of recognizing that it is a game, and as such there is sometimes good reason to make changes from real history; but there are other times where he seems to forget this and expects more from a fictional video game than needed (seriously, it’s really not a big deal that it doesn’t make an explicit statement against racial violence or forces players to listen to the suffragist in Saint Denis. The game has subtle messages about stuff like that anyway, e.g. Arthur gains honor if he wittily insults someone being sexist toward the women’s suffrage protestors). Enough of the negative, though. There’s plenty of positive stuff about this book to go around. For one thing, the ratio of real historical storytelling to game analysis is brilliant. I love the pattern Olsson has mastered of introducing an overall summary of an RDR2 mission, tying it to a real and similar historical event, explaining the deeper causes and ramifications of that event, and then going back to RDR2 and seeing how or if those are reflected. It keeps me engaged from subject to subject, and also provides some satisfaction when I successfully predict how Olsson’s thesis on a real event will tie in to RDR2! Another thing I really enjoy, and hopefully this doesn’t seem vague or weird, is how you can tell this was written by someone passionate about history. I’m a history nerd myself, and I too like writing long paragraphs about subjects I find extremely interesting. Olsson does the same, and it makes it seem like if we somehow happened to meet, we’d be able to talk for hours about history. You can tell this is a fun professor that cares about his field. That’s especially reinforced by the fact that he’s actually gone and played the game, which shows he’s not all bluster like so many inflammatory, clueless misrepresentations of video games these days (like news media’s bizarre attempt to frame RDR2 as a misogynist’s dream because you can punch women in it or something, which is mentioned in a later chapter). I may not agree with all of Olsson’s conclusions, and I certainly think there are a small handful that are straight up incorrect due to being contradicted by the game itself, but I cannot deny that he at least knows the vast majority of what he’s talking about and is qualified to write this book. A last and minor thing to praise, but worth praising nonetheless: The inclusion of historical photos in each chapter is pretty nice. Overall, I’d certainly recommend this book for anyone that really likes RDR2, history, or both. Just do read it with some caution in order to make sure you’re distinguishing between objective information and the author’s opinion. It’s tempting to absorb it all as truth if you agree with his politics - believe me, I’d know - but if you do, I think it will ultimately diminish the overall lessons.
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Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2025 by bluhoo