The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890

by Richard Slotkin (Author)

15 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0806130309

ISBN-10: 080613030X

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In The Fatal Environment, Richard Slotkin demonstrates how the myth of frontier expansion and subjugation of the Indians helped to justify the course of America’s rise to wealth and power. Using Custer’s Last Stand as a metaphor for what Americans feared might happen if the frontier should be closed and the "savage" element be permitted to dominate the "civilized," Slotkin shows the emergence by 1890 of a myth redefined to help Americans respond to the confusion and strife of industrialization and imperial expansion.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Fatal Environment is the second volume of Richard Slotkin's epochal study of the frontier myth in the cultural history of the United States. Like its predecessor, Regeneration Through Violence, the book discusses the archetype of the lone frontiersman/Indian hunter and how it has been used to rationalize the destructive excesses of American territorial expansion. Time and time again, the hunter/killer exerts a power over the wilderness that rests not upon the inherent superiority of his white civilization, but on the psychic absorption of the "barbaric" customs of the peoples on the uncharted landscape.

Slotkin begins by elaborating on the themes of the previous study, specifically showing how the mythic Indian fighter, who defined sectional interests in the decades prior to the Civil War, evolved into the frontier aristocrat, who not only possesses the virtues of the "leatherstocking" hero but also demonstrates the ability to lead men in erecting large-scale, technologically complex enterprises. Thus, Slotkin argues, popular imagery concerning the conquest of the West was made to reflect the interests of post-Civil War industrialized capitalism.

Custer's Last Stand epitomizes the transformation of the frontier hero from warrior to robber baron. In the book's most vivid chapter, Slotkin shows how the popular press turned the Boy General's defeat into a call not only for the destruction of the Plains Indians but for social controls over the immigrants who formed the emerging, potentially militant, urban proletariat. The Fatal Environment makes a compelling case that the culture of cowboy capitalism was steeped in the suppression of class conflict. --John M. Anderson

Review

"Without question, this is the most ambitious and provocative work in the field of American Studies to appear in recent years." -George M. Fredrickson, New York Review of Books

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Oklahoma Press (April 15, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 656 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 080613030X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0806130309
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.79 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.48 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #861,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,605 in United States History (Books)
- #3,908 in Native American History (Books)
- #20,712 in U.S. State & Local History

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15 ratings

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K. S. Bates

Classic, read this book with your dictionary alongside. ...

Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2014

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Classic, read this book with your dictionary alongside. The subject matter and alliteration are impeccable, a scholarly work for people who think seriously about serious things.

5 people found this helpful

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Jeff Stensrud

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2016

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Amazoning!

3 people found this helpful

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Jeffrey B Owens

Poor print quality

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021

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Great book, but the type is small and not crisp. As to not strain your eyes, I suggest purchasing from another seller.

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2017

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Amazing scholarship !

3 people found this helpful

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kim harris

The Fatal Environment

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2013

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I got this book for one specific reason: To try an answer "Why/how did GAC become a myth?" I found my answer to that question in this book. Having said that I found the book extremely difficult to read. I have a PhD in economics. This book has to be one of the most challenging I've ever read. I had to read most paragraphs 3 times to understand what the author was saying. It's a great book for someone doing research. I cannot recommend this book for the casual reader. I can recommend the following books:
Son of The Morning Star, The Last Stand, Cavalier in Buckskin.

16 people found this helpful

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Rose

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2014

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Awesome! Excellent!

3 people found this helpful

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Thomas White-Hassler

Essential reading for me

Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2013

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While searching for resources to help me understand the roots of the high violence level, relevant to other developed countries, I came upon Slotkin's three volumes that provide significant insight into how we arrived where we are.

5 people found this helpful

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Orrin C. Judd

panoramic & provocative

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2000

This inordinately ambitious, often overreaching & self-contradictory, but nonetheless thought-provoking book takes as it's central thesis the following: "The dominant themes of the Frontier Myth are those that center on the conception of American history as a heroic-scale Indian war, pitting race against race; and the central concern of the mythmakers is with the problem of reaching the 'end of the Frontier'. Both of these themes are brought together in the "Last Stand" legend, which is the central fable of the industrial or 'revised' Myth of the Frontier." Slotkin proceeds to trace the impact and the changing understanding of the Frontier Myth from King Phillip's War to 1890, when Frederick Jackson Turner declared the Frontier closed. He maintains that over this period of time the hero of the myth evolved from an agrarian/frontiersman/hunter to a soldier-aristocrat, because that was what industrial capitalism required.
Of course, this thesis begs several questions: Does Custer as culmination of the myth of the industrial captain make any sense? He was, after all, suckered and slaughtered by a pack of illiterate barbarians, are we to believe that the overlords of Capitalism wanted to be seen as incompetent fops? Also, why does Sitting Bull emerge as an American legend too? Shouldn't we expect him to be remembered as some kind of monster, rather than as a noble savage?
The reason that Slotkin can not, or does not, answer these questions, is because his book is a work of ideology as much as of history. He wanted to vilify Capitalism and 19th century robber barons and so, he finds primary sources to support his view. But does the fact that a few novels or newspapers treated the Last stand in the manner that he hoped they had actually prove anything? How do we know what kind of influence these contemporary writings had & did they really outweigh the opposing presentations in other periodicals and novels? And what explains the image that comes down to us in films like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, where Custer is portrayed as a blindly obstinate fanatic, largely responsible for his own death? Had Capitalism lost the need for it's own myths? It hardly seems likely.
In the end, Slotkin's book should be read for the panoramic sweep it offers of Frontier history and for the provocative, albeit inaccurate, theories that it offers up. His arguments are well worth wrestling with & refuting.
GRADE: B-

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The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890

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