Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860

Rating:
Summary: A Classic
Review: If you truly want to understand American culture this book is essential. It's erudite, detailed, patient, yet lively, examination of the themes of early American life and literature are revelatory. I have no doubt it will become a "classic" of American scholarship.

Rating:
Summary: Slotkin's vision will change the way you think about America
Review: Slotkin analyzes the popular texts of early American life--"capitivity narratives" of women abducted by Native Americans, dime novels, etc.--to show how early Americans came to rationalize the gap between their religious ideology and the reality of the wilderness they were meant to transform into the "city on the hill." His careful study of the documents seems almost academic at first, and is sometimes rough going, but when I let his argument sink in (as a student in Slotkin's undergraduate class which used this book as its text), it profoundly and permanently transformed the way I saw American culture and history. This book is revelatory for anyone interested in "American Studies," the creation of our national mythology, and in what makes America America.