Without humor, the American West would be a vast territory of arid clichés - stolid cowboys and fearless lawmen, or, in more modern visions, dastardly land developers and fanatical environmentalists - all of them as lifeless as an alkalai flat.

'The Laughing West' consists of twenty-one pieces of humorous western writing, along with a general introduction, section introductions and an afterword. Throughout the book, the humor is based on character, and on how our perception of the familiar character types has evolved over the years.