Download or read book Hollywood s West written by Peter C. Rollins and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2005-11-11 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner have argued that the West has been the region that most clearly defines American democracy and the national ethos. Throughout the twentieth century, the "frontier thesis" influenced film and television producers who used the West as a backdrop for an array of dramatic explorations of America's history and the evolution of its culture and values. The common themes found in Westerns distinguish the genre as a quintessentially American form of dramatic art. In Hollywood's West, Peter C. Rollins, John E. O'Connor, and the nation's leading film scholars analyze popular conceptions of the frontier as a fundamental element of American history and culture. This volume examines classic Western films and programs that span nearly a century, from Cimarron (1931) to Turner Network Television's recent made-for-TV movies. Many of the films discussed here are considered among the greatest cinematic landmarks of all time. The essays highlight the ways in which Westerns have both shaped and reflected the dominant social and political concerns of their respective eras. While Cimarron challenged audiences with an innovative, complex narrative, other Westerns of the early sound era such as The Great Meadow (1931) frequently presented nostalgic visions of a simpler frontier era as a temporary diversion from the hardships of the Great Depression. Westerns of the 1950s reveal the profound uncertainty cast by the cold war, whereas later Westerns display heightened violence and cynicism, products of a society marred by wars, assassinations, riots, and political scandals. The volume concludes with a comprehensive filmography and an informative bibliography of scholarly writings on the Western genre. This collection will prove useful to film scholars, historians, and both devoted and casual fans of the Western genre. Hollywood's West makes a significant contribution to the understanding of both the historic American frontier and its innumerable popular representations.
Download or read book The Legacy of Conquest The Unbroken Past of the American West written by Patricia Nelson Limerick and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-02-07 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Limerick is one of the most engaging historians writing today." --Richard White The "settling" of the American West has been perceived throughout the world as a series of quaint, violent, and romantic adventures. But in fact, Patricia Nelson Limerick argues, the West has a history grounded primarily in economic reality; in hardheaded questions of profit, loss, competition, and consolidation. Here she interprets the stories and the characters in a new way: the trappers, traders, Indians, farmers, oilmen, cowboys, and sheriffs of the Old West "meant business" in more ways than one, and their descendents mean business today.
Download or read book Winning the Wild West written by Page Stegner and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the history of the American frontier from 1800 to 1899, discussing how the expansion into the lands west of the Mississippi influenced the nation's formation.
Download or read book American National Pastimes A History written by Mark Dyreson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the colonies that became the USA were still dominions of the British Empire they began to imagine their sporting pastimes as finer recreations than even those enjoyed in the motherland. From the war of independence and the creation of the republic to the twenty-first century, sporting pastimes have served as essential ingredients in forging nationhood in American history. This collection gathers the work of an all-star team of historians of American sport in order to explore the origins and meanings of the idea of national pastimes—of a nation symbolized by its sports. These wide-ranging essays analyze the claims of particular sports to national pastime status, from horse racing, hunting, and prize fighting in early American history to baseball, basketball, and football more than two centuries later. These essays also investigate the legal, political, economic, and culture patterns and the gender, ethnic, racial, and class dynamics of national pastimes, connecting sport to broader historical themes. American National Pastimes chronicles how and why the USA has used sport to define and debate the contours of nation. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.
Download or read book Serial Killers written by Mark Seltzer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative cultural study, the serial killer emerges as a central figure in what Mark Seltzer calls 'America's wound culture'. From the traumas displayed by talk show guests and political candidates, to the violent entertainment of Crash or The Alienist, to the latest terrible report of mass murder, we are surrounded by the accident from which we cannot avert our eyes. Bringing depth and shadow to our collective portrait of what a serial killer must be, Mark Seltzer draws upon popular sources, scholarly analyses, and the language of psychoanalysis to explore the genesis of this uniquely modern phenomenon. Revealed is a fascination with machines and technological reproduction, with the singular and the mass, with definitions of self, other, and intimacy. What emerges is a disturbing picture of how contemporary culture is haunted by technology and the instability of identity.
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 The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2001-10-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reassessment of the military's role in developing the Western territories moves beyond combat stories and stereotypes to focus on more non-martial accomplishments such as exploration, gathering scientific data, and building towns.
Download or read book The American Scene written by and published by Ardent Media. This book was released on 1964 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Popular Frontier written by Frank Christianson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-12-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When William F. Cody introduced his Wild West exhibition to European audiences in 1887, the show soared to new heights of popularity and success. With its colorful portrayal of cowboys, Indians, and the taming of the North American frontier, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West popularized a myth of American national identity and shaped European perceptions of the United States. The Popular Frontier is the first collection of essays to explore the transnational impact and mass-cultural appeal of Cody’s Wild West. As editor Frank Christianson explains in his introduction, for the first four years after Cody conceived it, the Wild West exhibition toured the United States, honing the operation into a financially solvent enterprise. When the troupe ventured to England for its first overseas booking, its success exceeded all expectations. Between 1887 and 1906 the Wild West performed in fourteen countries, traveled more than 200,000 miles, and attracted a collective audience in the tens of millions. How did Europeans respond to Cody’s vision of the American frontier? And how did European countries appropriate what they saw on display? Addressing these questions and others, the contributors to this volume consider how the Wild West functioned within social and cultural contexts far grander in scope than even the vast American West. Among the topics addressed are the pairing of William F. Cody and Theodore Roosevelt as embodiments of frontier masculinity, and the significance of the show’s most enduring persona, Annie Oakley. An informative and thought-provoking examination of the Wild West’s foreign tours, The Popular Frontier offers new insight into late-nineteenth-century gender politics and ethnicity, the development of American nationalism, and the simultaneous rise of a global mass culture.
Download or read book Frontier s End written by Robert Gish and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The western frontier was officially pronounced closed in 1890, the year Harvey Fergusson was born in Albuquerque. He spent his life reopening it in a series of novels stretching from the classic Wolf Song to the belatedly acclaimed Grant of Kingdom and The Conquest of Don Pedro. In this first full biography and critical study, Robert F. Gish sees Fergusson as a modern frontiersman in love with the outdoors, women, and writing. The scion of New Mexico family prominent in business and politics, Fergusson moved restlessly from one new frontier to another, always seeking to recreate in his life and work the adventure and freedom enjoyed by his ancestors. After a strenuous open-air life by the Rio Grande he went east to raise a ruckus us a journalist and then to Hollywood as a screenwriter, all the while testing his sexual mettle. Finally freelance writing was the only frontier available to one of his imaginative energy. Fergusson?s early novel Wolf Song is still considered one of the best ever written about the mountain man. Gish shows the writer embracing the gloriously masculine and atavistic role of a ?lone rider? even as he scorned ?the worship of the primitive.? Fergusson struck up a friendship with H. L. Mencken and Theodore Dreiser (who influenced his literary style) and played a part in the development of Taos and Santa Fe as meccas for artists and writers. Based on extensive research, including Fergusson?s diaries and correspondence, Frontier?s End goes a long way toward reconciling the regional with the mainstream in American literature in the person of a serious novelist whose importance is finally being recognized.
Download or read book A Life on the American Frontiers Collected Works of Henry Schoolcraft written by Henry Schoolcraft and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-12-14 with total page 1389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henry Schoolcraft's 'A Life on the American Frontiers: Collected Works of Henry Schoolcraft' offers a comprehensive view of his experiences and observations as an explorer, geologist, and ethnologist in the early 19th century. This collection showcases Schoolcraft's meticulous documentation of Native American culture, folklore, and traditions, providing valuable insights into a rapidly changing American landscape. His writing style is both informative and engaging, reflecting his dedication to preserving the history and heritage of the indigenous peoples he encountered. Schoolcraft's work serves as a significant contribution to American literature and ethnography, bridging the gap between the past and the present. Through his detailed accounts and vivid descriptions, readers are transported to a bygone era, allowing them to appreciate the complexity and richness of Native American societies. This anthology is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, anthropology, or Indigenous studies, as it sheds light on a pivotal period of cultural exchange and transformation in the United States.
Download or read book Salvation Gap and Other Western Classics written by Owen Wister and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1999-01-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Owen Wister invented the Western novel with The Virginian, and that work and this collection of stories prove that, although many have gone after him, no one has ever topped him in skill and enduring appeal. Wister saw the story of the West as a collision of centuries, with the Stone Age, the Middle Ages, and the modern world coming together to form a new place and a new people. Wister said of this collection, "These stories are about Indians and soldiers and events west of the Missouri. They belong to the past . . . but you will find some of those ancient surviving centuries in them if you take my view." ø Here are unforgettable characters: Specimen Jones, the taciturn and capable rider from an unknown past, who has no use for fools and even less for bullies; General Crook and his men, who do the Government?s dirty work on the frontier and get no thanks for it; and unregenerate Rebels and Union veterans in an uneasy frontier political alliance.
Download or read book Fairground Attractions written by Deborah Philips and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-01-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. The study investigates the cultural production of the visual iconography of popular pleasure grounds from the eighteenth century pleasure garden to the contemporary theme park. Deborah Philips identifies the literary genres, including fairy tale, gothic horror, Egyptiana and the Western which are common to carnival sites, tracing their historical transition across a range of media to become familiar icons of popular culture.Though the bricolage of narratives and imagery found in the contemporary leisure zone has been read by many as emblematic of postmodern culture, the author argues that the clash of genres and stories is less a consequence of postmodern pastiche than it is the result of a history and popular tradition of conventionalised iconography.
Download or read book Literary Culture and U S Imperialism From the Revolution to World War II written by John Carlos Rowe Professor of English University of California at Irvine and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000-06-12 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Carlos Rowe, considered one of the most eminent and progressive critics of American literature, has in recent years become instrumental in shaping the path of American studies. His latest book examines literary responses to U.S. imperialism from the late eighteenth century to the 1940s. Interpreting texts by Charles Brockden Brown, Poe, Melville, John Rollin Ridge, Twain, Henry Adams, Stephen Crane, W. E. B Du Bois, John Neihardt, Nick Black Elk, and Zora Neale Hurston, Rowe argues that U.S. literature has a long tradition of responding critically or contributing to our imperialist ventures. Following in the critical footsteps of Richard Slotkin and Edward Said, Literary Culture and U.S. Imperialism is particularly innovative in taking account of the public and cultural response to imperialism. In this sense it could not be more relevant to what is happening in the scholarship, and should be vital reading for scholars and students of American literature and culture.
Download or read book Literary Culture and U S Imperialism written by John Carlos Rowe and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hunter trader trapper written by and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 1010 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
