The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience
The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience

Author: G. Edward White

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2012-07-25

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 0292745524

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First published in 1968, The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience has become a classic in the field of American studies. G. Edward White traces the origins of “the West of the imagination” to the adolescent experiences of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister—three Easterners from upper-class backgrounds who went West in the 1880s in search of an alternative way of life. Each of the three men came to identify with a somewhat idealized “Wild West” that embodied the virtues of individualism, self-reliance, and rugged masculinity. When they returned East, they popularized this image of the West through art, literature, politics, and even their public personae. Moreover, these Western virtues soon became and have remained American virtues—a patriotic ideal that links Easterners with Westerners. With a multidisciplinary blend of history, biography, sociology, psychology, and literary criticism, The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience will appeal to a wide audience. The author has written a new preface, offering additional perspectives on the mythology of the West and its effect on the American character.

The American Military on the Frontier
The American Military on the Frontier

Author: James P. Tate

Publisher: The Minerva Group, Inc.

Published: 2002-06

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780898759976

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The Seventh Military History Symposium of the United States Air Force Academy brought together military historians, frontier historians, western historians, and local historians. The papers presented are arranged in four sections: The Frontier and American Military Tradition Comparison of Military Frontiers Impact of the Military on the Frontier Military Life on the Frontier Papers in the first two sections address the broad weep of the military experience on the frontier. These papers help provide perspective and conceptual framework within which to fit the more specific studies in the third and fourth sections. The fifth section, "The Seventh Military History Symposium in Perspective," includes the reactions and commentary of three leading military historians.

The American West
The American West

Author: Robert V. Hine

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 628

ISBN-13: 0300078331

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Two historians, Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher, present the American West as both frontier and region, real and imagined, old and new, and they show how men and women of all ethnic groups were affected when different cultures met and clashed. Their concise and engaging survey of frontier history traces the story from the first Columbian contacts between Indians and Europeans to the multicultural encounters of the modern Southwest. Profusely illustrated with contemporary drawings, posters, and photographs and written in lively and accessible prose, the book not only presents a panoramic view of historical events and characters but also provides fascinating details about such topics as western landscapes, environmental movements, literature, visual arts, and film.

Collision and Collusion
Collision and Collusion

Author: Janine R. Wedel

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2015-03-17

Total Pages: 451

ISBN-13: 1466892250

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When the Soviet Union's communist empire collapsed in 1989, a mood of euphoria took hold in the West and in Eastern Europe. The West had won the ultimate victory--it had driven a silver stake through the heart of Communism. Its next planned step was to help the nations of Eastern Europe to reconstruct themselves as democratic, free-market states, and full partners in the First World Order. But that, as Janine Wedel reveals in this gripping volume, was before Western governments set their poorly conceived programs in motion. Collision and Collusion tells the bizarre and sometimes scandalous story of Western governments' attempts to aid the former Soviet block. He shows how by mid-decade, Western aid policies had often backfired, effectively discouraging market reforms and exasperating electorates who, remarkably, had voted back in the previously despised Communists. Collision and Collusion is the first book to explain where the Western dollars intended to aid Eastern Europe went, and why they did so little to help. Taking a hard look at the bureaucrats, politicians, and consultants who worked to set up Western economic and political systems in Eastern Europe, the book details the extraordinary costs of institutional ignorance, cultural misunderstanding, and unrealistic expectations.

Adventure, Mystery, and Romance
Adventure, Mystery, and Romance

Author: John G. Cawelt

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-02-07

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 022614870X

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In this first general theory for the analysis of popular literary formulas, John G. Cawelti reveals the artistry that underlies the best in formulaic literature. Cawelti discusses such seemingly diverse works as Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Dorothy Sayers's The Nine Tailors, and Owen Wister's The Virginian in the light of his hypotheses about the cultural function of formula literature. He describes the most important artistic characteristics of popular formula stories and the differences between this literature and that commonly labeled "high" or "serious" literature. He also defines the archetypal patterns of adventure, mystery, romance, melodrama, and fantasy, and offers a tentative account of their basis in human psychology.

True West
True West

Author: William R. Handley

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 9780803224100

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In no other region of the United States has the notion of authenticity played such an important yet elusive role as it has in the West. Though pervasive in literature,øpopular culture, and history, assumptions about western authenticity have not received adequate critical attention. Given the ongoing economic and social transformations in this vast region, the persistent nostalgia and desire for the ?real? authentic West suggest regional and national identities at odds with themselves. True West explores the concept of authenticity as it is used to invent, test, advertise, and read the West. The fifteen essays collected here apply contemporary critical and cultural theory to western literary history, Native American literature and identities, the visual West, and the imagining of place. Ranging geographically from the Canadian Prairies to Buena Park?s Entertainment Corridor in Southern California, and chronologically from early tourist narratives to contemporary environmental writing, True West challenges many assumptions we make about western writing and opens the door to an important new chapter in western literary history and cultural criticism.

Indian Country
Indian Country

Author: Martin Padget

Publisher: UNM Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780826330291

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Indian Country analyzes the works of Anglo writers and artists who encountered American Indians in the course of their travels in the Southwest during the one-hundred-year period beginning in 1840. Martin Padget looks first at the accounts produced by government-sponsored explorers, most notably John Wesley Powell's writings about the Colorado Plateau. He goes on to survey the writers who popularized the region in fiction and travelogue, including Helen Hunt Jackson and Charles F. Lummis. He also introduces us to Eldridge Ayer Burbank, an often-overlooked artist who between 1897 and 1917 made thousands of paintings and drawings of Indians from over 140 western tribes. Padget addresses two topics: how the Southwest emerged as a distinctive region in the minds of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Americans, and what impact these conceptions, and the growing presence of Anglos, had on Indians in the region. Popular writers like Jackson and Lummis presented the American Indians as a "primitive culture waiting to be discovered" and experienced firsthand. Later, as Padget shows, Anglo activists for Indian rights, such as Mabel Dodge Luhan and Mary Austin, worked for the acceptance of other views of Native Americans and their cultures.

Duels and the Roots of Violence in Missouri
Duels and the Roots of Violence in Missouri

Author: Dick Steward

Publisher: University of Missouri Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0826262287

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In early-nineteenth-century Missouri, the duel was a rite of passage for many young gentlemen seeking prestige and power. In time, however, social groups outside the ruling class engaged in a variety of violent acts and symbolic challenges under the rubric of the code duello. In Duels and the Roots of Violence in Missouri, Dick Steward takes an in-depth look at the evolution of dueling, tracing the origins, course, consequences, and ultimate demise of one of the most deadly art forms in Missouri history. By focusing on the history of dueling in Missouri, Steward details an important part of our culture and the long-reaching impact this form of violence has played in our society.

The Mythic West in Twentieth-century America
The Mythic West in Twentieth-century America

Author: Robert G. Athearn

Publisher:

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13:

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Briefly describes life in the West, and discusses the ephemeral nature of the region, western towns, the tourist industry, agriculture, fiction, and the ecology movement.