The Epilogue treats the Alaskan airplane crash in August 1935 that took the lives of Rogers and his good friend, the pilot Wiley Post. This tragedy was followed by an outpouring of public grief not seen in America since the death of Abraham Lincoln seventy years before. A flood of eulogies, newspaper and magazine stories, radio broadcasts, and political speeches confirmed the Oklahoman’s standing as a beloved friend and folk hero to millions of Americans.

Chapter Two follows a restless Rogers’ attempt to find himself as a young man by going abroad to seek work as a cowboy. He first journeyed to Argentina, then South Africa, and finally, Australia. A struggle to achieve success led him into popular "cowboy shows" where his riding and roping skills made him an attraction as "The Cherokee Kid" and symbol America for foreign audiences. Returnng to the United States after a couple of years, and determined to continue a career in entertainment, he joined a popular Wild West show featured at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. When the show went to New York and found success, Rogers affirmed his determination to be a cowboy showman and professional entertainer.

Chapter Nine explores Rogers’ humor, which was the common denominator in his wide-ranging endeavors as a public figure . It argues that he was the heir of a homespun, cracker-box tradition of comic commentary dating back to Benjamin Franklin and continuing through Artemus Ward, Petroleum V. Nasby, Mr. Dooley, and Mark Twain. Rogers presented a comic persona composed of common sense, a puncturing of pretense and pomposity, and a head-shaking, chuckling exposure of the absurdities of modern values and traditional prejudices alike. He did not tell jokes but offered witty reflections on the conundrums of modern life, appearing as a rustic sage cracking wise at the local general store. Moreover, while Rogers took pains to present his humor as spontaneous, it was actually meticulously prepared. Ultimately, by joking about the tensions, incongruities, and dislocations of a rapidly modernizing society, he helped Americans come to terms with enormous changes affecting their lives. Their rapturous reception made Rogers the leading American humorist of early twentieth-century America.

Chapter Five charts Rogers’ move into silent pictures, a dynamic new entertainment form taking the country by storm in the late 1910s. He headed to Hollywood in 1919 to work for producer Samuel Goldwyn, for whom he would star in a dozen films over the next two years. His films combined humor with depictions of ordinary people struggling to surmount some kind of travail or imposition. In 1923, Rogers moved on and signed a contract with another pioneering producer, Hal Roach. Over a two-year period the Oklahoman would complete thirteen more films, while subsequently appearing in a few independent productions and starring in a series of European travelogue films. Involvement with silent films placed Rogers squarely within the new world of leisure entertainment, and further enhanced his status as a celebrity.

Chapter One examines Rogers’ youth in the Cherokee Territory of Oklahoma. It stresses his upbringing as the scion of a prominent Cherokee family and the ongoing tension with his father over the boy’s dislike of schooling and reluctance to pursue a traditional career as a rancher/businessman. Young Rogers cherished the free life of the cowboy riding the range. The chapter also explores Rogers’ "double consciousness" as an American Indian outsider who expressed pride in his lineage and culture, sought to succeed in white America, but betrayed a subtle resentment about the need to do so.

Chapter Eight turns to what became a growing preoccupation for Rogers in the 1920s: politics. In his journalistic writing and live appearances, the humorist’s habitual survey of current events and public issues increasingly focused on the tendencies and foibles of American political life. He especially took aim at the pretension, dissembling, selfishness, and pomposity of both political parties and delighted in skewering Congress and various president’s for ineffective or foolish policies. He often described politics as "bunk." Rogers covered Republican and Democratic conventions, interviewed Presidents Harding and Coolidge, and spoke frequently with influential figures such as Bernard Baruch and Al Smith. Throughout, he stood squarely in the tradition of American populism, upholding the interests of average citizens and criticizing the privileges of social and economic elites. Rogers’ own political reputation peaked in 1928, when he was convinced to run a tongue-in-cheek campaign for the presidency.

The introduction presents Rogers as a figure straddling major divides in American history. He was a Cherokee Indian seeking suceess in a WASP society, and a cowboy from the rural republic of the nineteenth century who becomes a wildly popular humorist, writer, and movie star in the urban society of the twentieth century. In particular, it frames him as a historical figure reflecting four important shifts in this era: the end of the frontier, the development of a consumer culture of abundance and personality, the emergence of modern celebrity, and the sharpening of a populist ethos in culture and politics. Finally, it frames Rogers as a historical mediator who helped Americans ease their way from one historical era to another.

Chapter Three analyzes Rogers’ move into vaudeville , the national entertainment circuit that fascinated the American public during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The Oklahoman became a star attraction whose cowboy garb and tremendous roping skills delighted audiences all over the country. Rogers also gradually developed another skill that became his calling card – humorous commentary. As an emblem of the American West that was gradually disappearing in the wake of urban, industrial growth, and a natural humorist whose down-home jests and good-natured wisecracks delighted audiences, Rogers began to establish a national presence. This period also saw his stormy courtship of, and marriage to, Betty Blake, a young woman from back home. The marriage would last for the rest of his life.

Chapter Six explains how Rogers contributed greatly to a media revolution that reshaped American culture in the early 1900s. Beginning in 1922, he reached a vast new popular audience by becoming a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist (first with a weekly column, then a shorter daily one), writing regulary for magazines, making advertisements, cutting phonograph records, and making sporadic appearances in the new medium of radio. He also updated the old tradition of the lecture,regularly traveling throughout the nation to appear before audiences in town halls, lyceums, and churches. Throughout, Rogers deployed his talents as a cracker-barrel philosopher and down-home wit to interrogate America’s move to embrace a new consumer, urban, leisure-oriented culture.

Chapter Eleven takes up Rogers’ engagment with the Great Depression of the 1930s, the economic disaster that marked the culmination of his influence as a commentator on American political life. The Oklahoman castigated Wall Street for foolish financial practices and criticized Americans for buying on credit, two practices in the 1920s he believed underlay the economic collapse. With typical good-humored civility, he initially sympathized with Herbert Hoover as a victim of circumstances but soon denounced the president’s refusal to promote relief programs and job-creation initiatives. Rogers became an enthusiastic supporter of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. The humorist became one of the biggest boosters of FDR’s programs as necessary to save the American system. While suspicious of federal government overreach and the encouragement of labor radicalism, he deemed the New Deal largely a success. Throughout the Depression, Rogers maintained his populist outlook, consistently criticizing economic and social elites while laboring to protect and uplife America’s common, working citizens. His acclaim for "the little fellow" further elevated his public stature in America.

Chapter Seven digs deeper into Roger’s commentary to uncover his attempts to explain the essence of American values. He consistently probed what it meant to be an Americanand did so with wit and insight. Roger stressed several qualities that he believed defined his society: a veneration of ordinay people and a concern for their well-being, a suspicion of social and economic elitism, a respect for the work ethic,and a belief in social egalitarianism and economic opportunity. Rogers’ populist mind-set caused him to locate "the American soul" in common people. He saw the best of American tradition in William Jennings Bryan, the best of modern innovation in aviator Charles Lindbergh, and the ideal combination in industrialist Henry Ford. Ironically, after years of imbibing his humorous reflections, many people concluded that the nature and meaning of America appeared when Rogers looked in the mirror. He became the keeper of the American soul.