Download or read book The Significance of the Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by . This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2014 Reprint of 1894 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. The "Frontier Thesis" or "Turner Thesis," is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1894 that American democracy was formed by the American Frontier. He stressed the process-the moving frontier line-and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed consequences of a ostensibly limitless frontier and that American democracy and egalitarianism were the principle results. In Turner's thesis the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents. Frontier land was free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won very wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories. By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in the U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines.
Download or read book Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner written by Frederick Turner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-02-08 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1893 a young Frederick Jackson Turner stood before the American Historical Association and delivered his famous frontier thesis. To a less than enthusiastic audience, he argued that "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development"; that this frontier accounted for American democracy and character; and that the frontier had closed forever with uncertain consequences for the American future. Despite the indifference of Turner's first audience, his essay would soon prove to be the single most influential piece of writing on American history, with extraordinary impact both in intellectual circles and in popular literature. Within a few years his views had become the dominant interpretation of the American past. A collection of his essays won the Pulitzer Prize, and for almost half a century, Turner's thesis was the most familiar model taught in schools, extolled by politicians, and screened in fictional form at local movie theaters each Saturday afternoon. Now, a hundred years after Turner's famous address, award-winning biographer John Mack Faragher collects and introduces the pioneer historian's ten most significant essays. Remarkable for their truly modern sense that a debate about the past is simultaneously a debate about the present, these essays remain stimulating reading, both as a road map to the early-twentieth-century American mind and as a model of committed scholarship. Faragher introduces us to Turner's work with a look at his role as a public intellectual and his effect on Americans' understanding of their national character. In the afterword, Faragher turns to the recent heated debate over Turner's legacy. Western history has reemerged in the news as historians argue over Turner's place in our current mind-set. In a world of dizzying intellectual change, it may come as something of a surprise that historians have taken so long to overturn the interpretation of a century-old conference paper. But while some claim that Turner's vision of the American West as a great egalitarian land of opportunity was long ago dismissed, others, in the words of historian Donald Worster, maintain that Turner still "presides over western history like a Holy Ghost.". Against this backdrop, Faragher looks at what the concept of the West means to us today and provides a reader's guide to the provocative new literature of the American frontier. Rereading these essays in the fresh light of Faragher's analysis brings new appreciation for the richness of Turner's work and an understanding of contemporary historians' admiration for Turner's commitment to the study of what it has meant to be American.
Download or read book A World of Letters written by Nicholas A. Basbanes and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Yale University Press, which celebrates its hundredth birthday in 2008, the century has been an eventful one, punctuated with no few surprises. The Press has published more than 8,000 volumes through the years, scores of bestsellers and award-winners among them, and these books have come to fruition through the efforts of a host of colorful authors, editors, directors, board members, and others of intellectual and literary renown. With an ear always cocked for an interesting tale, one of today's best storytellers presents an anecdote-rich chronicle of the Press's first 100 years. Nicholas Basbanes, whom David McCullough has called the leading authority of books about books, quickly convinces us that the Press's history, while bookish, is also lively and fascinating. Basbanes explores the saga behind the acquisition of Eugene O'Neill's blockbuster play, the all-time Yale bestseller Long Day's Journey into Night; the controversy sparked in 1965 by publication of The Vinland Map; the origins of the groundbreaking Annals of Communism series, initiated in the wake of the Soviet Union's demise; and many more highlights from Press annals. Basbanes looks at the reasons behind the publisher's remarkable financial success, and he completes A World of Letters with a glimpse at the new initiatives that will propel the Press into a second exciting century.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing written by Kelly Boyd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-09 with total page 864 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing contains over 800 entries ranging from Lord Acton and Anna Comnena to Howard Zinn and from Herodotus to Simon Schama. Over 300 contributors from around the world have composed critical assessments of historians from the beginning of historical writing to the present day, including individuals from related disciplines like Jürgen Habermas and Clifford Geertz, whose theoretical contributions have informed historical debate. Additionally, the Encyclopedia includes some 200 essays treating the development of national, regional and topical historiographies, from the Ancient Near East to the history of sexuality. In addition to the Western tradition, it includes substantial assessments of African, Asian, and Latin American historians and debates on gender and subaltern studies.
Download or read book On Turner s Trail written by Wilbur R. Jacobs and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2021-10-08 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should Frederick Jackson Turner be revered as “the father of western history” or reviled as a misguided advocate of a frontier spirit and rugged individualism that denied cultural diversity and produced widespread environmental destruction? Dividing into campus over the issue, western historians place him everywhere from one end of the spectrum to the other. In this provocative new interpretation of Turner’s life, work, and legacy, Wilbur Jacobs challenges the views of traditionalists and views of traditionalists and revisionists alike. From extensive research in the Turner archives, a nationwide search for additional Turner correspondence, interviews with historians, and a lifetime of collecting Turner anecdotes, Jacobs chronicles Turner’s professional (and sometimes personal) bequest through 100 years of Western historical writing. Jacobs adds his voice to the heated ebate by mixing a sophisticated critique of historical writing with stories of professional intrigue—the fights to protect Turner’s legacy, limit access to the Turner archives, and control the Western history Association. He traces the intellectual development of Turner’s frontier theory; explores the intense rivalry between two major Turnerian disciples, Frederick Merk and Ray A. Billington, as they vied for control of Turner’s legacy; and analyzes the efforts of new western historians who seek to erase Turner and Billington from the landscape of what is now called the history of the “West.” Balanced in his assessments, Jacobs treats Turner and his disciples with a sympathetic yet critical eye. He points out Turner’s limitations in dealing with environmental, racial-ethnic, and urban themes as well as the shortcomings of Merk, Billington, and other Turnerians. At the same time, however, Jacobs illuminates the major contributions of their work. Despite their intense differences, Jacobs argues, all western historians remain inextricably linked by Turner’s legacy.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas written by Bruce G. Trigger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description: The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica (Part One), gives a comprehensive and authoritative overview of all the important native civilizations of the Mesoamerican area, beginning with archaeological discussions of paleoindian, archaic and preclassic societies and continuing to the present. Fully illustrated and engagingly written, the book is divided into sections that discuss the native cultures of Mesoamerica before and after their first contact with the Europeans. The various chapters balance theoretical points of view as they trace the cultural history and evolutionary development of such groups as the Olmec, the Maya, the Aztec, the Zapotec, and the Tarascan. The chapters covering the prehistory of Mesoamerica offer explanations for the rise and fall of the Classic Maya, the Olmec, and the Aztec, giving multiple interpretations of debated topics, such as the nature of Olmec culture. Through specific discussions of the native peoples of the different regions of Mexico, the chapters on the period since the arrival of the Europeans address the themes of contact, exchange, transfer, survivals, continuities, resistance, and the emergence of modern nationalism and the nation-state.
Download or read book On Turner s Trail written by Wilbur R. Jacobs and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From a master historian, this is one of the most important contributions in recent years to American historiography. It adds to a penetrating analysis of the development of Turner's thought a searching consideration of the influence of his ideas, an investigation of the advocacy and criticism that they have sparked, and an estimate of their enduring importance. Handsomely produced and illustrated". -- Choice.
Download or read book Old and New New Englanders written by Bluford Adams and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2014-01-22 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cultural history of New England examining the notions of regional identity and its transformation between 1865 and 1900
Download or read book The Naked Heart The Bourgeois Experience Victoria to Freud written by Peter Gay and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1996-10-17 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Naked Heart, Peter Gay explores the bourgeoisie's turn inward. At the very time that industrialists, inventors, statesmen, and natural scientists were conquering new objective worlds, Gay writes, "the secret life of the self had grown into a favorite and wholly serious indoor sport." Following the middle class's preoccupation with inwardness through its varied cultural expressions (such as fiction, art, history, and autobiography), Gay turns also to the letters and confessional diaries of both obscure and prominent men and women. These revealing documents help to round out a sparkling portrait of an age.
Download or read book The Study of History written by and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History is a subject which never stands still. It is always changing its philosophies, its contours, its leading questions, its politics, its conceptual status and its methodologies. This bibliographical guide to the study of history is wide-ranging in scope extending from the ancient world to the 20th century. It deliberately concentrates on modern historians' views, provides a substantial section on the philosophy of history, charts controversies and highlights the continual evolution and diversification of history. The material is logically organized in major areas and subsections, and cross-references are given where appropriate. An index of authors, editors and compilers is also provided.
Download or read book American Geography and Geographers written by Geoffrey J. Martin and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 1241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of American geography as a distinctive science in the United States straddles the 19th and 20th centuries, extending from the post-Civil war period to 1970. American Geography and Geographers: Toward Geographic Science is the first book to thoroughly and richly explicate this history. Its author, Geoffrey J. Martin, the foremost historian on the subject and official archivist of the Association of American Geographers, amassed a wealth of primary sources from archives worldwide, which enable him to chart the evolution of American geography with unprecedented detail and context. From the initial influence of the German school to the emergence of Geography as a unique discipline in American universities and thereafter, Martin clarifies the what, how and when of each advancement. Expansive discussion of the arguments made, controversies ignited and research voyages move hand in hand with the principals who originated and animated them: Davis, Jefferson, Huntington, Bowman, Johnson, Sauer, Hartshorne, and many more. From their grasp of local, regional, global and cultural phenomena, geographers also played pivotal roles in world historical events, including the two world wars and their treaties, as the US became the dominant global power. American Geography and Geographers: Toward Geographical Science is a conclusive study of the birth and maturation of the science. It will be of interest to geographers, teachers and students of geography, and all those compelled by the story of American Geography and those who founded and developed it.
Download or read book The Plains Across written by John D. Unruh and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most honored book ever released by the University of Illinois Press, The Plains Across was the result of more than a decade's work by its author. Here, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Oregon Trail, is a paperback reissue that includes the notes, bibliography, and illustrations contained in the 1979 cloth edition.
Download or read book Appalachia and America written by Allen Batteau and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of fourteen essays, scholars of Appalachian culture and society examine how the people contend with and adapt to the pressures of change thrust upon them. Appalachia and America will appeal to a broad range of people interested in the southern mountains or in the policy issues of social welfare. It deals cogently with the newest form of conflict affecting not only communities in Appalachia, but urban and rural communities in America at large—the struggle for local values and ways of life in the face of distant and powerful bureaucracies.
Download or read book The Transatlantic World of Higher Education written by Anja Werner and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the 1760s and 1914, thousands of young Americans crossed the Atlantic to enroll in German-speaking universities, but what was it like to be an American in, for instance, Halle, Heidelberg, Göttingen, or Leipzig? In this book, the author combines a statistical approach with a biographical approach in order to reconstruct the history of these educational pilgrimages and to illustrate the interconnectedness of student migration with educational reforms on both sides of the Atlantic. This detailed account of academic networking in European educational centers highlights the importance of travel for academic and cultural transformations in nineteenth-century America.
Download or read book Frederick Jackson Turner written by Vernon E. Mattson and published by Hall Reference Books. This book was released on 1985 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Representing and Imagining America written by Davies Philip John Davies and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In America, perhaps more than in any other western society, reality, legend and myth overlap. Americans have always been proprietorial about their country and its presentation. The international authors of this book open a range of windows on our study of the USA. Covering issues of culture and society, literature, politics and history, ethnicity, ideology and democracy, they offer a unique analysis of the way in which we perceive and interpret a country which has become the only truly global force in politics and culture.See also: Journal of Transatlantic Studies
Download or read book Wilsonian Statecraft written by Lloyd E. Ambrosius and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1991 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilsonian Statecraft: Theory and Practice of Liberal Internationalism during World War I offers the most detailed analysis to date that is devoted exclusively to this president's statecraft during the Great War. Chapter's on Wilson's intellectual background, his evolving concept of collective security, and his involvement in the crises in Europe provide important insights into the president's short-term practicality and long-range idealism.
