A Decent Orderly Lynching: The Montana Vigilantes (Hardback, 2004 1st Ed) VG

A Decent Orderly Lynching: The Montana Vigilantes

Very good condition used 2004 First Edition Hardback
with intact Dust Jacket.

Published by University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, USA.
Author: Frederick Allen.
ISBN: 0806136375.
Approx dims: 240mm h x 165mm w x 31mm d.

Intact clean glossy condition dust jacket and spine with slight
creasing and signs of handling. Inside dust jacket has some foxing.
Dust Jacket over good condition two tone brown boards with some
slight signs of handling. 421 clean, slightly off white pages of English
text with 41 b&w photo illustrations and 3 b&w maps, no inscriptions.
Image shown is actual book for sale.

Synopsis: The deadliest campaign of vigilante justice in American history
erupted in the Rocky Mountains during the Civil War when a private army
hanged twenty-one troublemakers. Hailed as great heroes at the time, the
Montana vigilantes are still revered as founding fathers.

Combing through original sources, including eye-witness accounts never
before published, Frederick Allen concludes that the vigilantes were justified
in their early actions, as they fought violent crime in a remote corner beyond
the reach of government.

But Allen has uncovered evidence that the vigilantes refused to disband after
territorial courts were in place. Remaining active for six years, they lynched
more than fifty men without trials. Reliance on mob rule in Montana became
so ingrained that in 1883, a Helena newspaper editor advocated a return to
“decent, orderly lynching” as a legitimate tool of social control.

Allen’s sharply drawn characters, illustrated by dozens of photographs, are
woven into a masterfully written narrative that will change textbook accounts
of Montana’s early days—and challenge our thinking on the essence of justice.