Calling all fans of Red Dead Redemption and/or American History! Union Ave Books is excited to present Tore Olsson for the launch party of Red Dead’s History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America’s Violent Past. This event will take place on August 15th at 6pm at the East Tennessee History Center and is free to attend. Featured during the event will be Warren Dockter, CEO of the East Tennessee Historical Society, and the world premier of UTK’s Land Grant Films’ short documentary about Tore’s class, book, and the making of the audiobook with RDR actor Roger Clark, “Shooting for an A: Video Games and Education”. Please RSVP here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tore C. Olsson is an award-winning historian of the United States since the Civil War, and a professor at the University of Tennessee. He has devoted much of his career to making serious history relevant and accessible to the public. In 2021, he taught the first-ever college history class on the Red Dead Redemption games, which provided the inspiration for this book. Born in Sweden, Olsson emigrated to the U.S. in 1990, where he misspent much of his youth behind a video game monitor.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A pathbreaking new way to examine US history, through the lens of a bestselling video game.

Red 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 book, 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.