This chapter traces the milestones of McCarthy’s career and the history of scholarship devoted to his work. Initial lines of inquiry into McCarthy’s style, influences, and engagement with region, genre, and historical context grow more numerous and nuanced over time, and critical attention gradually turns to moral and religious implications in his work, McCarthy’s treatment of environment and ecology, how his characters and settings reflect changing economic practices and contexts, and McCarthy’s creative process as reflected in his manuscript materials. At present, we see wide interest in writing about how to teach McCarthy to different ages and demographics of students, how best to unpack his nonfiction and make connections to his other work, and how to track in more detail his interest in science and complex systems, especially given his long involvement with the Santa Fe Institute.