A review by gabesteller
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin
5.0
Man cant rave about this book enough, It was like the most clarifying thing I’ve read in soooo long. IT’S THE FRONTIER MAN! It explains everything!!
In a nutshell The Frontier in the minds of White Americans:
• Creates the prospect of unlimited land, and forges a bond based in race violence between all classes of white people as they decide to take as much as they please from Native Americans and Mexicans
• Serves as a safety valve for tensions between labor and capitol (you can always go west!), which in Europe gave them labor parties but here just makes for more expansion, race violence, and unchecked corporations!
• Once physical frontier runs out, it still serves as a patriotic metaphor and justification for expanding American military and corporate power overseas!
Basically this boundlessness and conviction that you can always have as much as you can take, is the guiding principle of White American history and the source of the cult of individualism, white supremacy, and shitty American entitlement that makes our govt. think we can just fuck with everyone's shit allover the world, let our corporations run wild, and be racist as fuck.
Anyway the book tracks the idea of the frontier through American history. And you might have to be already interested in history to truly love it but I found this frontier frame for looking at America the best and most concise distillation of why were so shitty and why we’ve done so many shitty things, I’ve ever read.
In a nutshell The Frontier in the minds of White Americans:
• Creates the prospect of unlimited land, and forges a bond based in race violence between all classes of white people as they decide to take as much as they please from Native Americans and Mexicans
• Serves as a safety valve for tensions between labor and capitol (you can always go west!), which in Europe gave them labor parties but here just makes for more expansion, race violence, and unchecked corporations!
• Once physical frontier runs out, it still serves as a patriotic metaphor and justification for expanding American military and corporate power overseas!
Basically this boundlessness and conviction that you can always have as much as you can take, is the guiding principle of White American history and the source of the cult of individualism, white supremacy, and shitty American entitlement that makes our govt. think we can just fuck with everyone's shit allover the world, let our corporations run wild, and be racist as fuck.
Anyway the book tracks the idea of the frontier through American history. And you might have to be already interested in history to truly love it but I found this frontier frame for looking at America the best and most concise distillation of why were so shitty and why we’ve done so many shitty things, I’ve ever read.