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The western is a cultural phenomenon of the U.S., but the genealogy of its ideology—aristocratic honor, courage, and justice—extends back to ages of conquest and stories of heroes like Beowulf, Achilles, and Odysseus. Audiences in the infancy of the western craved an idealism taken from the white knight of medieval kingdoms, a hero known as the cowboy, whom they believed, built the country. Deirdre McCloskey argues that the modern world, not just the U.S., was built on a recasted set of ideals, a bourgeois ethic that is cause of our material improvement over last 300 years. The American ideology that attracts audiences to the western is thus at odds with the ideology in McCloskey’s economic history. Altogether independently, David Milch exploits this mismatch of ideas in the HBO series Deadwood (2004-2006). He creates a world that likewise challenges the ideology that the U.S. was built on aristocratic conquest. The transition from an aristocratic to a bourgeois ethical system plays out in the first 14 episodes of Deadwood, culminating in a classic showdown that the hero in a western must win. The questions are, who is the hero, who is the villain, and how did the hero win?

In response to Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s Forum article “Imposter Intuition” (June p21), in which she discusses the causes of imposter syndrome and the value of the outsider’s perspective.

Opportunistic pathogens such as Legionella are of significant public health concern in hospitals. Microbiological and water chemistry parameters in hot water throughout an Ohio hospital were monitored monthly before and after the installation of a monochloramine disinfection system over 16 months. Water samples from fifteen hot water sampling sites as well as the municipal water supply entering the hospital were analyzed using both culture and qPCR assays for specific microbial pathogens including Legionella, Pseudomonas spp., nontuberculous Mycobacteria [NTM], as well as for heterotrophic bacteria. Legionella culture assays decreased from 68% of all sites being positive prior to monochloramine addition to 6% positive after monochloramine addition, and these trends were parallel to qPCR results. Considering all samples, NTMs by culture were significantly reduced from 61% to 14% positivity (p

Providing an exceptional overview and analysis of the global economy, from the origins of Homo sapiens to the present day, Colin White explores our past to help understand our economic future. He veers away from traditional Eurocentric approaches, providing a truly global scope for readers. The main themes include the creative innovativeness of humans and how this generates economic progression, the common economic pathway trodden by all societies, and the complementary relationship between government and the market.