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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
An 8 page book review on Patricia Limerick's history analysis, The Legacy of Conquest. In this book, Limerick presents a persuasive argument that disagrees with the popular conceptualization of the history of the American West. First of all, Limerick disagrees with the idea that 1890 constitutes a clear demarcation line between the nineteenth century frontier era and the modern age. She questions this "chronological line between the frontier and the modern West," as rather arbitrary and primarily motivated by the myth of the West, rather than its reality (Limerick 81). According to Limerick, popular American mythology clouds how both scholars and ordinary citizens perceive the topic of the nineteenth century frontier. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
8 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khplwest.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
First of all, Limerick disagrees with the idea that 1890 constitutes a clear demarcation line between the nineteenth century frontier era and the modern age. She questions this "chronological line
between the frontier and the modern West," as rather arbitrary and primarily motivated by the myth of the West, rather than its reality (Limerick 81). According to Limerick, popular American
mythology clouds how both scholars and ordinary citizens perceive the topic of the nineteenth century frontier. Limerick pictures the American West as a "place undergoing conquest," as well as a
land that has never fully succeeded in "escaping its consequences" (Limerick 26). As this indicates, Limericks prose paints a picture of the West that is dramatically different from the
way in which Western history is typically portrayed, as she definitively demonstrates that the social and economic forces of the era of Western conquest were influential in shaping life in
that region in the twentieth century, as well as the present. Limericks view of the West and American expansion during the nineteenth century is unique, as her arguments indicate that
even if historian Frederick Jackson Turners concept of 1890 marking the closing of the Western frontier is accepted, it is frequently misconstrued as it can be shown that events of
the conquest era continue to shape current realities. Limericks text shows that the history of the American West is rooted primarily in economic reality and in such unromantic ideas as
profit, loss, competition and compromise. The text is built upon a framework that connects events in the conquest of the Western frontier to problems in the present, which is
an interesting perspective as it serves to shift the emphasis of historical analysis from the usual, rather romantic cast of historical characters toward an investigation of the social forces that
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