Kids Library Home

Welcome to the Kids' Library!

Search for books, movies, music, magazines, and more.

     
Available items only
Print Material
Author Bryan, Jimmy L., author.

Title The American elsewhere : adventure and manliness in the age of expansion / Jimmy L. Bryan Jr.

Publication Info. Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, [2017]

Copies

Location Call No. OPAC Message Status
 Axe 2nd Floor Stacks  973.1 B84a 2017    ---  Available
Description x, 393 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
text txt rdacontent
unmediated n rdamedia
volume nc rdacarrier
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-375) and index.
Contents Introduction -- The adventurous impulse -- The storyteller nation -- An aristocracy of buckskin -- Sentimental frontiers -- The companionship of peril -- Romantic invaders -- Epilogue : legacies of adventurous manhood.
Summary "Adventure is a common thread in the mythology of the American West. In the era of manifest destiny, mountain men and frontiersmen blazed trails across the continent in ways that still loom large in the American imagination. The life of mountain man Hugh Glass, for example, has inspired numerous books and movies, including Oscar-winner The Revenant. In folklore and popular culture, these men are typically portrayed as bold adventurers and American heroes. By contrast, scholars, especially in the past fifty years, tend to view them as villains, agents of violent conquest. In The American Elsewhere, Jimmy Bryan proposes a third view, a middle ground that considers the influence of Romanticism on the emotional motivations behind both the violent actions and self-aggrandizing views of adventurers in antebellum America. Bryan bases his study on "adventurelogues," novels and memoirs about the West written in the decades before the Civil War. He argues that these writings reveal the Romantic emotionalism adventurers brought to their time in the West as they sought escape from the Market Revolution and an Eastern world they perceived as dull and stifling. While Romantic artists and philosophers encountered the sublime in nature, these adventurers found the sublime in dangerous, violent interactions. They sought out situations where they could act boldly, experience profound emotions, and demonstrate their masculinity. And by then publishing accounts and fictionalizations of their adventures, these men created narratives of American manhood that viewed brutality, avarice, and chauvinism as noble--narratives that supported conquest and colonialism."--Provided by publisher.
Subject United States -- Territorial expansion -- History -- 19th century.
United States -- Territorial expansion -- Social aspects.
Adventure and adventurers -- West (U.S.)
Masculinity -- West (U.S.) -- History.
Masculinity in literature.
Masculinity in popular culture -- United States.
Frontier and pioneer life in literature.
Adventure stories, American -- History and criticism.
Adventure and adventurers. (OCoLC)fst00797447
Adventure stories, American. (OCoLC)fst00797469
Frontier and pioneer life in literature. (OCoLC)fst00935389
Masculinity. (OCoLC)fst01011027
Masculinity in literature. (OCoLC)fst01011040
Masculinity in popular culture. (OCoLC)fst01011042
Territorial expansion. (OCoLC)fst01355135
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
United States, West. (OCoLC)fst01243255
Chronological Term 1800-1899
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. (OCoLC)fst01411635
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Added Title Adventure and manliness in the age of expansion
ISBN 9780700624782 hardcover alkaline paper
0700624783 hardcover alkaline paper
9780700624799 electronic book

 
    
Available items only