Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America (Mythology of the American West)

National Book Award Finalist: The “impressive” conclusion to the “magisterial trilogy on the mythology of violence in American history” (Film Quarterly).

“The myth of the Western frontier—which assumes that whites’ conquest of Native Americans and the taming of the wilderness were preordained means to a progressive, civilized society—is embedded in our national psyche. U.S. troops called Vietnam ‘Indian country.’ President John Kennedy invoked ‘New Frontier’ symbolism to seek support for counterinsurgency abroad. In an absorbing, valuable, scholarly study, [the author] traces the pervasiveness of frontier mythology in American consciousness from 1890