Introduction: The Significance of the Frontier Myth in American History Myth and Historical Memory; The Politics of Myth; Regeneration Through Violence: The Language of the Myth; The Frontier Myth as a Theory of Development; "Progressives" and "Populists" |
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1 | (28) |
Part I: The Mythology of Progressivism, 1880-1902 |
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29 | (96) |
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1. The Winning of the West: Theodore Roosevelt's Frontier Thesis, 1880-1900 Sources and Premises; The Historian as Hunter; The Winning of the West: A Progressive Myth of Origins; Recovering the Frontier: Regeneration Through Imperialism |
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29 | (34) |
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2. The White City and the Wild West: Buffalo Bill and the Mythic Space of American History, 1880-1917 Staging Reality: The Creation of Buffalo Bill, 1869-1883; The Wild West and the Ritualization of American History; The Ritual Frontier and the Sanctification of Imperialism |
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63 | (25) |
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3. Mob, Tribe, and Regiment: Modernization as Militarization, 1883-1902 Origins of the Military Metaphor; Cavalry in the Streets, 1890-1896; Roosevelt's Rough Riders: The Regiment as Social Microcosm; The Philippine "Insurrection" as Savage War, 1898-1902; "1008 Dead Niggers": The Logic of Massacre |
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88 | (37) |
Part II: Populists and Progressives: Literary Myth and Ideological Style, 1872-1940 |
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125 | (106) |
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4. Mythologies of Resistance: Outlaws, Detectives, and Dime-Novel Populism, 1873-1903 Social Banditry in Fact and Fiction: The Reconstruction Outlaws, 1865-1880; The Pinkerton Detective: Hawkeye Among the Communists; The Outlaw/Detective: Heroic Style as Ideology; The Significances of Dime-Novel Populism |
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125 | (31) |
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5. Aristocracy of Violence: Virility, Vigilante Politics, and Red-Blooded Fiction, 1895-1910 "Men Who Do the Work of the World"; Recovering the Savage: Remington, London, Garland; The Virginian (1902) and the Myth of the Vigilante; Democracy or Civilization: Dixon's The Clansman (1904); The Political Uses of Symbolic Violence |
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156 | (38) |
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6. From the Open Range to the Mean Streets: Myth and Formula Fiction, 1910-1940 Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Virginian in Outer Space, 1911-1925; Zane Grey: The Formula Western, 1911-1925; The Virginian in Nighttown: Origins of the Hard-boiled Detective, 1910-1940 |
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194 | (37) |
Part III: Colonizing a Mythic Landscape: Movie Westerns, 1903-1948 |
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231 | (116) |
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7. Formulas on Film: Myth and Genre in the Silent Movie, 1903-1926 Genre as Mythic Space; Cinematic Form and Mythographic Function: Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915); Icons of Authenticity: The Movie Star as Progressive Hero; The Epic Western, 1923-1931 |
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231 | (24) |
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8. The Studio System, the Depression, and the Eclipse of the Western, 1930-1938 The Studio as Genre-Machine, 1930-1938; The Two-Gun Man of the Twenties: Gangster Films, 1931-1939; The World-scale Western: "Victorian Empire" Movies, 1935-1940; "Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...": "B" Westerns, 1931-1939 |
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255 | (23) |
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9. The Western Is American History, 1939-1941 The Rediscovery of American History; The Renaissance of the Feature Western; The Cult of the Outlaw; The Apotheosis of the "B" Western: John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) |
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278 | (35) |
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10. Last Stands and Lost Patrols: The Western and the War Film, 1940-1948 The Problem of Engagement: For Whom the Bell Tolls (1939); The Problem of Defeat: Bataan (1943) as Last Stand; The Problem of Victory: Objective Burma (1945); The Problem of Memory: Fort Apache (1948) |
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313 | (34) |
Part IV: Democracy and Force: The Western and the Cold War, 1946-1960 |
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347 | (142) |
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11. Studies in Red and White: Cavalry, Indians and Cold War Ideology, 1946-1954 Real-World Problems in Mythic Spaces: Dramatizing the Problem of Force; Cult of the Cavalry: Rio Grande (1950) and the Korean War; Cult of the Indian: Devil's Doorway and Broken Arrow (1950) |
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347 | (32) |
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12. Killer Elite: The Cult of the Gunfighter, 1950-1953 The Revised Outlaw: From Rebel to Psychopath; The Invention of the Gunfighter; High Noon (1952): The Hero in Spite of Democracy; A Good Man with a Gun: Shane (1953); The Gunfighter Mystique |
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379 | (26) |
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13. Imagining Third World Revolutions: The "Zapata Problem" and the Counterinsurgency Scenario, 1952-1954 Coloring the Looking-Glass: Mexico as Mythic Space, 1912-1952; The "Zapata Problem": The Strong Man Makes a Weak People; The Man Who Knows Communists: The Heroic Style of Covert Operations (1953-54); Fast Guns for "Zapata": The Counterinsurgency Scenario and Vera Cruz (1954) |
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405 | (36) |
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14. Gunfighters and Green Berets: Imagining the Counterinsurgency Warrior, 1956-1960 American Guerrilla in the Philippines: The Landsdale Scenario; Imagining a Counterpart: The Ugly American (1958); The Ranger Mystique and the Origin of Special Forces; Search and Rescue/Search and Destroy: The Indian-Hater as Counterguerrilla; The Magnificent Seven (1960) and the Counterinsurgency Paradox |
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441 | (48) |
Part V: Gunfighter Nation: Myth, Ideology, and Violence on the New Frontier, 1960-1970 |
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489 | (174) |
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15. Conquering New Frontiers: John Kennedy, John Wayne, and the Myth of Heroic Leadership, 1960-1968 Modernizing Turner: The Ideology of the New Frontier; Heroic Leadership and the Cult of Toughness; Defending the West: Epic Cinema and the New Frontier, 1960-1965; John Wayne Syndrome: The Cult of "The Duke"; Blockbuster Tactics: The Green Berets (1968) and the Big Unit War |
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489 | (45) |
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16. Attrition: The Big Unit War, the Riots, and the Counterinsurgency Western, 1965-1968 The Road to Ben Tre: The (Il)logic of Attrition; The Race War Comes Home: Watts, Newark, Detroit (1965-1967); Exceptional Violence: Official Revisions of the Frontier Myth, 1967-1969; Recovering the Mission: Mexico Westerns, 1965-1968 |
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534 | (44) |
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17. Cross-over Point: The Mylai Massacre, The Wild Bunch, and the Demoralization of America, 1969-1972 "Indian Trip": The Mylai Massacre; The Demoralization of the Western: Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969); Lunatic Semiology: The Demoralization of American Culture, 1969-1973 |
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578 | (46) |
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18. Conclusion: The Crisis of Public Myth Indian Tripping: The Alternative Western, 1970-1976; Murderous Nostalgia: Myth and Genre After the Western; Back in the Saddle Again?: The Reagan Presidency and the Recrudescence of the Myth; Imagining America |
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624 | (39) |
Notes |
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663 | (104) |
Bibliography |
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767 | (62) |
Index |
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829 | |