About this item
Gunfighter Nation completes Richard Slotkin's trilogy, begun in Regeneration Through Violence and continued in Fatal Environment, on the myth of the American frontier. Slotkin examines an impressive array of sources - fiction, Hollywood westerns, and the writings of Hollywood figures and Washington leaders - to show how the racialist theory of Anglo-Saxon ascendance and superiority (embodied in Theodore Roosevelt's The Winning of the West) , rather than Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis of the closing of the frontier, exerted the most influence in popular culture and government policy making in the twentieth century. He argues that Roosevelt's view of the frontier myth provided the justification for most of America's expansionist policies, from Roosevelt's own Rough Riders to Kennedy's counterinsurgency and Johnson's war in Vietnam.
About the Author
Richard Slotkin is a cultural critic, historian, and novelist. He is the Olin Professor of English and American Studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, and in 2010 was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Slotkin graduated from Brooklyn College, received his Ph. D. in American Civilization from Brown University and started teaching at Wesleyan University in 1966. During his time at Wesleyan he helped to establish both the American studies and the film studies programs. Slotkin has won several awards in recognition of his contributions to the field of American studies. He currently lives in Connecticut, where he continues to write and consult on projects dealing with violence, popular culture and Western America.
