The Cynical Historian | Understanding the Wild West Myth : American Exceptionalism through Violence and Indian Wars @CynicalHistorian | Uploaded 10 months ago | Updated 3 minutes ago
Historians of the American West despise the term “Wild West.” It has a lot of connotations that are inherently false and more-so vile, yet so much of popular culture is based around these misconceptions. From manifest destiny to disappearing Indigenous people, there are many components to the frontier myth. It is the most common myth in American history and in fact drove much of that history. Heck, it’s basically what defines the so-called “American character,” you know the thing that a myth is about. We tell ourselves stories to inform our identity. Perhaps the person who pushed the myth the best was Frederick Jackson Turner. He argued, “American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.” Turner became a household name after he presented his thesis at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Every invocation of what makes America exceptionally great since then has had Turner’s frontier thesis behind it, even if his name has faded from memory.
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Here is my dissertation:
Joseph Hall-Patton, "Great Excitement: Violent Incorporations of the American Southwest," dissertation, University of New Mexico, 2023. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/341/
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Connected videos
Playlist of stuff related to my original scholarly work: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjnwpaclU4wUSSIUw8fPp1SjwFxOj3wD2
Death of the Western Genre: youtu.be/x6zD1sjnClM
Bookclub livestreams: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjnwpaclU4wWayDJTnpm4ONOS5Mkk8N9k
US Army exploration: youtu.be/kFGAAdx1kg0
Film accuracy limits: youtu.be/Ek88jgEsXgA
Political polarization: youtu.be/i-E14o6Do9Y
Butch and Sundance review: youtu.be/iYu1E8idqO0
Hostiles review: youtu.be/-hNPovai-2k
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Historians of the American West despise the term “Wild West.” It has a lot of connotations that are inherently false and more-so vile, yet so much of popular culture is based around these misconceptions. From manifest destiny to disappearing Indigenous people, there are many components to the frontier myth. It is the most common myth in American history and in fact drove much of that history. Heck, it’s basically what defines the so-called “American character,” you know the thing that a myth is about. We tell ourselves stories to inform our identity. Perhaps the person who pushed the myth the best was Frederick Jackson Turner. He argued, “American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.” Turner became a household name after he presented his thesis at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Every invocation of what makes America exceptionally great since then has had Turner’s frontier thesis behind it, even if his name has faded from memory.
------------------------------------------------------------
Here is my dissertation:
Joseph Hall-Patton, "Great Excitement: Violent Incorporations of the American Southwest," dissertation, University of New Mexico, 2023. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/hist_etds/341/
------------------------------------------------------------
Connected videos
Playlist of stuff related to my original scholarly work: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjnwpaclU4wUSSIUw8fPp1SjwFxOj3wD2
Death of the Western Genre: youtu.be/x6zD1sjnClM
Bookclub livestreams: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjnwpaclU4wWayDJTnpm4ONOS5Mkk8N9k
US Army exploration: youtu.be/kFGAAdx1kg0
Film accuracy limits: youtu.be/Ek88jgEsXgA
Political polarization: youtu.be/i-E14o6Do9Y
Butch and Sundance review: youtu.be/iYu1E8idqO0
Hostiles review: youtu.be/-hNPovai-2k
------------------------------------------------------------
SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=CynicalCypher88
Support the channel through PATREON: patreon.com/CynicalHistorian
or by purchasing MERCH: cynical-historian-shop.fourthwall.com
LET'S CONNECT:
Twitch: twitch.tv/cynicalhistorian
Facebook: facebook.com/cynicalcypher88
Discord: discord.gg/Ukthk4U
Twitter: twitter.com/Cynical_History
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/cynicalhistorian.bsky.social
Threads: threads.net/@cynicalhistorian
