"Just what and where is the West? Why have so many been so obsessed
with finding and saving that mythic time and place? What has the
West meant to those who have lived there and to the millions more
who have journeyed there only in their imaginations? And how have
the answers to these questions changed with the years? The issues
involved here--the place of the West and the frontier experience in
our search for a national identity--have inspired a small library
of important books during the last thirty years or so. Most of
these writers have given their attention to those confident and
aggressive years of the nineteenth century when the frontier was
sweeping across the continent.
"Athearn's contribution, in part, is to pursue the shifting
perceptions of the West into the present century. There the story
has taken new twists as Americans have confronted hard lessons
about themselves and their land. Again and again the message of
events has been much the same: We are running short of resources
and of room to grow. The region that once seemed endlessly
bountiful and forever wild has become a land of narrowing limits.
With this realization, popular feelings about the West, 'the most
American part of America, ' have swung erratically between hope and
disillusionment, affection and anger. Yet the myth has survived,
however battered and bent into new shapes. . . .
"The Mythic West is by no means meant as a full treatment of its
subject. Instead Athearn uses each chapter to consider from a
different angle certain developments that have shaped the modern
West and some of the ways these transformations have in turn molded
what people have thought and dreamed about that land. . . . It is
informed by his characteristic intelligence and graced by the humor
and felicity of style his readers have come to expect. As do his
other works, it leaves us with a deeper, richer understanding of
that elusive and complex place, the West, which he knew as well as
anyone ever will."--from the Foreword
General
Imprint: |
University Press of Kansas
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
October 1986 |
First published: |
October 1986 |
Authors: |
Robert G. Athearn
|
Dimensions: |
230 x 150 x 18mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
324 |
Edition: |
New edition |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-7006-0377-0 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
0-7006-0377-8 |
Barcode: |
9780700603770 |
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