Cowboy Presidents

Cowboy Presidents
Author :
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages : 386
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780806169699
ISBN-13 : 0806169699
Rating : 4/5 (99 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Cowboy Presidents by : David A. Smith

Download or read book Cowboy Presidents written by David A. Smith and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2021-02-11 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For an element so firmly fixed in American culture, the frontier myth is surprisingly flexible. How else to explain its having taken two such different guises in the twentieth century—the progressive, forward-looking politics of Rough Rider president Teddy Roosevelt and the conservative, old-fashioned character and Cold War politics of Ronald Reagan? This is the conundrum at the heart of Cowboy Presidents, which explores the deployment and consequent transformation of the frontier myth by four U.S. presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. Behind the shape-shifting of this myth, historian David A. Smith finds major events in American and world history that have made various aspects of the “Old West” frontier more relevant, and more useful, for promoting radically different political ideologies and agendas. And these divergent adaptations of frontier symbolism have altered the frontier myth. Theodore Roosevelt, with his vigorous pursuit of an activist federal government, helped establish a version of the frontier myth that today would be considered liberal. But then, Smith shows, a series of events from the Lyndon Johnson through Jimmy Carter presidencies—including Vietnam, race riots, and stagflation—seemed to give the lie to the progressive frontier myth. In the wake of these crises, Smith’s analysis reveals, the entire structure and popular representation of frontier symbols and images in American politics shifted dramatically from left to right, and from liberal to conservative, with profound implications for the history of American thought and presidential politics. The now popular idea that “frontier American” leaders and politicians are naturally Republicans with conservative ideals flows directly from the Reagan era. Cowboy Presidents gives us a new, clarifying perspective on how Americans shape and understand their national identity and sense of purpose; at the same time, reflecting on the essential mutability of a quintessentially national myth, the book suggests that the next iteration of the frontier myth may well be on the horizon.


Cowboy Presidents Related Books

Cowboy Presidents
Language: en
Pages: 386
Authors: David A. Smith
Categories: Political Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-02-11 - Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For an element so firmly fixed in American culture, the frontier myth is surprisingly flexible. How else to explain its having taken two such different guises i
Cecil Andrus
Language: en
Pages: 264
Authors: Cecil D. Andrus
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 1998 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Andrus, four-term governor of Idaho and former US Secretary of the Interior under President Carter, brings his irascible charm to the task of reflecting upon hi
Cowboy Conservatism
Language: en
Pages: 429
Authors: Sean P. Cunningham
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-07-02 - Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Cunningham provides a vivid, informative, and frequently insightful chronicle of Texas politics between 1963 and 1980.” —Journal of American History Duri
Dream West
Language: en
Pages: 391
Authors: Douglas Brode
Categories: Performing Arts
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-08-01 - Publisher: University of Texas Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Overturns conventional thinking that the Western genre is essentially conservative. Instead, Brode demonstrates that Hollywood liberals used Westerns to espous
Socialist Cowboy
Language: en
Pages: 105
Authors: Larry Savage
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Socialist Cowboy is a political biography detailing the life and activism of longtime New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos, one of the most colourful and controversial