van Minnen, Cornelis , and Sylvia L. Hilton, eds., Frontiers and Boundaries in U.S. History . Amsterdam: VU University Press, European Contributions to American Studies, 58, 2004 .

250 pp.

ISBN: 90-5383-942-9

The essays collected in this volume explore the frontier theme in American history, not only as it relates to issues of political jurisdiction, territorial expansion, and cultural interaction, but also as a concept which is applicable to many different types of historically significant boundaries that have been used to differentiate and separate, that have been renegotiated, or that might be historiographically redefined. Physical geography, demographic movements, international relations, political culture, social customs, language, religion, and other cultural factors, as they intertwined over time, have all played roles in the historical processes of defining the nation, its values and the limits of its power. The same factors have also given rise to different social groups, interests and jurisdictions within the nation. These essays examine many kinds of frontiers and boundaries -- territorial, economic, ethnic, literary, artistic, ideological, political, institutional, administrative, and even historiographical --, discussing theoretical and interpretive problems in their demarcation, as well as their transgression, and their relationship with the exercise of power, from colonial times to the present.

Contents

Introduction. Sylvia L. Hilton and Cornelis A. van Minnen

Reassessing American Frontier Theory: Culture, Cultural Relativism, and the Middle Ground in Early America. Paul Otto

Foregrounding the Boundaries of American Literary History. Michael Boyden

Republicanism, Federalism and Territorial Expansion in the United States. Carmen de la Guardia Herrero

Breaking into the American Frontiers: Thomas Jefferson's Expeditions to the West. Marco Sioli

Myths and Legends of the Irish Pioneers in Texas. Graham Davis

Yeomen and Yankees across the Mason-Dixon Line: A Different Perspective on the Antebellum North/South Divide? Louis Billington and David Brown

The Special Message of Rutherford B. Hayes, 8 March 1880, and the "American" Canal Policy. Joseph Smith

On the Frontier of Civilization: Deliberations of Exceptionalism and Environmental Determinism in the Creation of America's Tropical Empire, 1890-1910. Frank Schumacher

Cajun Louisiana: A "French" Borderland in the Twentieth Century. Robert M. Lewis

New Deal, New Frontiers and Borderlands. David K. Adams

Frontiers and Boundaries in Hollywood Film: The Case of The Grapes of Wrath. Melvyn Stokes

Along the Ideological Frontier: The Limits of American Democracy, the Communist Party, and the Need for Historiographical Synthesis.   James G. Ryan

Between Avant-Garde and Kitsch: Pragmatic Liberalism, Public Arts Funding, and the Cold War in the United States. David Brian Howard

Hawaii, Statehood, and the East-West Center: Opening Up the Pacific Frontier. Giles Scott-Smith

The "New" American Frontier in Real and Fictional Las Vegas.   Ingrid Eumann

Frontier and Identity: The Case of Alaska. Tity de Vries

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgments

Back to Publication-Literature