Gunfighter Nation: Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, The [Paperback]

Richard Slotkin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0806130318 | ISBN-13: 978-0806130316 | Publication Date: April 15, 1998

Gunfighter Nation completes Richard Slotkin’s trilogy, begun in Regeneration Through Violence and continued in Fatal Environment, on the myth of the American frontier. Slotkin examines an impressive array of sources - fiction, Hollywood westerns, and the writings of Hollywood figures and Washington leaders - to show how the racialist theory of Anglo-Saxon ascendance and superiority (embodied in Theodore Roosevelt’s The Winning of the West), rather than Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis of the closing of the frontier, exerted the most influence in popular culture and government policy making in the twentieth century. He argues that Roosevelt’s view of the frontier myth provided the justification for most of America’s expansionist policies, from Roosevelt’s own Rough Riders to Kennedy’s counterinsurgency and Johnson’s war in Vietnam.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Gunfighter Nation concludes Richard Slotkin's three-volume study, which began in 1973 with the publication of Regeneration Through Violence, of the significance of the frontier in the American imagination. Looking primarily at pulp novels and films, Slotkin takes a painstakingly thorough look at the relationship between imagery of the West in industrial mass culture and U.S. foreign policy during the 20th century. Specifically, he looks at how the previous century's "frontier aristocrat" served as the model diplomat for America's agenda of economic imperialism from the Spanish American War to the "police action" in Vietnam.

As the U.S. gained international stature, the archetype of the frontier aristocrat articulated the goals and ideals of the American populace. But Slotkin shows how, as time progressed, the increasing irrelevance of the frontier myth on foreign soil foiled the prowess of the U.S. war machine. At the book's conclusion, in which images of the My Lai Massacre are juxtaposed against the final shootout of Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, the contradiction between faith and experience becomes painfully evident. Gunfighter Nation delivers the satisfaction of a historian with the acquired wisdom to address directly the issues that inspired his lifelong work. --John M. Anderson

From Publishers Weekly

The myth of the Western frontier--which assumes that whites' conquest of Native Americans and the taming of the wilderness were preordained means to a progressive, civilized society--is embedded in our national psyche. U.S. troops called Vietnam "Indian country." President John Kennedy invoked "New Frontier" symbolism to seek support for counterinsurgency abroad. In an absorbing, valuable, scholarly study, Slotkin, director of American studies at Wesleyan University, traces the pervasiveness of frontier mythology in American consciousness from 1890 to the present. Theodore Roosevelt's "progressive" version of the frontier myth was used to justify conquest of the Philippines and the emergence of a new managerial class. Dime novels and detective stories adapted the myth to portray gallant heroes repressing strikers, immigrants and dissidents. Completing a trilogy begun with Regeneration Through Violence and The Fatal Environment , Slotkin unmasks frontier mythmaking in novels and Hollywood movies. The myth's emphasis on use of force over social solutions has had a destructive impact, he shows, on our handling of urban violence, racial conflict and the "drug war."
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 864 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (April 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806130318
• ISBN-13: 978-0806130316
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Examination of pop culture as history, April 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Gunfighter Nation: Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, The (Paperback)

Winner of countless praise, Gunfighter Nation changed the way we view almost all aspects of American history. It is a well-crafted critical work that articulates earlier French theories of common mythologies and their influences on history but frames them in purely American terms.

Viewing the fictional works of Zane Gray, James Fenimore Cooper, the historical work of Teddy Roosevelt and Frederick Jackson Turner, the influence of popular entertainment like Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and the genres of the western film and film noir Slotkin methodically describes the construction of the American frontier myth. He explores how this myth has influenced the personal lives of great figures of American history and subsequently affected all forms of American policy both foreign and domestic.

The book connects the myth of the frontier to common perceptions of race, class and gender and illustrates how integral that myth was in America's attempts to expand into the Caribbean, battle the forces of Communism in Europe and project power into Southeast Asia. There are some particularly interesting sections that deal specifically with how the frontier myth inspired the strategic and tactical mindset of the war in Vietnam.

Without the slightest hyperbole this book is truly revolutionary. Slotkin was one of the first to tell the story of American history through its influence on pop culture and one of the first to show the influences of pop culture on history. His theories of American myth making have become the backbone of almost all work being done in American Studies and this series is among the most commonly cited resources in academic works over many broad fields.

Clearly the source and still the best for any serious (and even amateur) student of American history. Its innumerable accolades are well deserved.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gunfighter Nation, October 24, 2009

By 

Michael J. Mann - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gunfighter Nation: Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, The (Paperback)

This book is a must buy, for anyone interested in an well researched account of frontier myth's. Slotkin delivers a readable journey through the western mythology of the twentieth-century.

7 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars vital perspectives, theories but also FACTS, October 8, 2008

By 

W. McKinley "WM" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gunfighter Nation: Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America, The (Paperback)

This and Slotkin's other volumes in this trilogy are, to me, exceptionally well-written, perceptive, and although long and complex, definitely worth studying if you are an open-hearted open-minded seeker. It is amazing, and sometimes depressing, to see how two people can read the same work and have totally opposite reactions. I was astonished to read one review which says this is a terrible, an awful, a bad book. It can only be terrible and bad if you are prejudicially predisposed to want to disagree with Slotkin's premises, but Slotkin does provide ample annotation and proof of facts he cites. We have all been lied to and we have all been victims of this all-too-human propensity to belief our own cartoon and movie mythic hero-characters. We are doing it all over again in Iraq, we have disastrous collective amnesia, and evidenced by candidate McCain in the Pres. debate proudly announcing his hero is Teddy Roosevelt, who, as Slotkin shows by direct quotes of TRW's writings, was a White supremacist, a racist, and an American Imperialist! This is not about liberal, or leftist, of conservative and rightist, it is about the truth beyond all false categories.