The Wild West is alive and well in Europe! But it's a Wild West that has very little to do with a reality called America. The Wild West for many Europeans has been, always will be a mythical place where Europeans can stage their own adventures, fight their own quarrels, dream their own dreams. If the Wild West had never existed, then Europe would have had to invent it!

Listen to the series in 2 parts:

Part 1

1. Introduction: Normi Noel
2. Rodeo in Carcasone
3. The Role of the Wild West in the European Imagination
4. Chateaubriand's Atala (1800)
5. Karl May's Winnetou & Old Shatterhand
6. The Winnetou Legend Today
7. Kjell Hallbing, Norwegian Writer of Westerns
8. The Influence of Buffalo Bill
9. Cowboys & Indians

Part 2

1. Tramping in Czechoslovakia: Then & Now
2. The Annual German Western Bund on the Rhine
3. Sergeo Leone's Spaghetti Westerns
4. The Abilene Western Club, Antwerp
5. The Pony Express Station, Belgian Border with the Netherlands
6. The West as Political Protest in Communist Europe
7. The Riding of the Pony Express from Mnicek to Prague
8. Program Credits