Fronteir Exceptionalism :: essays research papers

What is exceptionalism? As defined by The American Heritage dictionary of the English Language, is it 1) the condition of being exceptional or unique and 2) the speculation or belief that something, especially a nation, doesnt conform to a pattern or a norm. Some historians credit the terms origins to Alex de Tocqueville, the nineteenth century French historian. Since colonial clocks, Americans felt of themselves as the preeminent suit of a social and morally advanced society. John Winthrops city on a Hill illustrated the Puritan religious tones for these ideals. After the Revolution, a combination of secular and sacred ideologies formed that saw the United States as providentially selected to be a divine stage for liberty and a new world order. But dont all peoples of a nation feel an exceptional pride in their nation? wherefore did/do Americans feel that way? I moot one of the most fundamentally authoritative facets that contributed to the American exceptionalism spirit thi s time was the limit. The frontier, whether a place or process, certainly shaped American vox populi from a ragtag colonial cluster to a hegemon with muscular muster. I disagree with many Turnerian protgs, however, in that the process of settling the frontier was not a series of successes. The new reappraisal of western taradiddle shows that not all courses of action taken resulted in progress. Patricia Limerick discusses this well in her essay entitled What on Earth is New Western annals? In this essay she tries to quell old myths that are celebrated by those who would like to hold on with a blind eye to phony stories. But these interpretations of the west are just as vitally important as the Indian and cowboy mystique. The concept of America and what an American is was fashioned from the combination of myth versus reality. Most of my paper will be examining these topics from Limerick, ridgepole and Richard Whites When Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill Cody two Play ed Chicago in 1893.Turner and Cody told the story of the west in two starkly different angles, and with two different approaches. Turners narrative was one that told of large, empty expanse of free land that was in that location for the taking, and was basically free from violence. Codys Wild West showed an adventure of conquering and persecution at the hands of the Indians, a correct representation of life on the plains.(47) But when the two are taken into account together, the biases of each hold to light the complexities that shadowed their explanation for their perspective.