Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I Themes
- Part II Influences
- Part III Poetics
- 8 Medieval warfare
- 9 Early modern war writing and the British Civil Wars
- 10 The eighteenth century and the romantics on war
- 11 American Revolutionary War writing
- 12 The Victorians and war
- 13 The American Civil War
- 14 The First World War: British writing
- 15 The First World War: American writing
- 16 The Spanish Civil War
- 17 The Second World War: British writing
- 18 The Second World War: American writing
- 19 American writing of the wars in Korea and Vietnam
- 20 The Cold War and the “war on terror”
- Index
15 - The First World War: American writing
from Part III - Poetics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I Themes
- Part II Influences
- Part III Poetics
- 8 Medieval warfare
- 9 Early modern war writing and the British Civil Wars
- 10 The eighteenth century and the romantics on war
- 11 American Revolutionary War writing
- 12 The Victorians and war
- 13 The American Civil War
- 14 The First World War: British writing
- 15 The First World War: American writing
- 16 The Spanish Civil War
- 17 The Second World War: British writing
- 18 The Second World War: American writing
- 19 American writing of the wars in Korea and Vietnam
- 20 The Cold War and the “war on terror”
- Index
Summary
War and the American tradition
In his 1893 address to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Frederick Jackson Turner observed that American territorial expansion westwards - the country's “Manifest Destiny” - had ended due to the simple fact of reaching the sea. To avoid stagnation, Turner argued, the country would have to turn to commercial proliferation overseas. The frontiersman spirit embodied in such figures as Andrew Jackson, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston would be translated into economic imperialism. One proponent of this policy was Theodore Roosevelt, President from 1901 to 1909. Famed for his derring-do during the Spanish-American War (1898), Roosevelt asserted the values of the rugged individual in his book The Strenuous Life (1899). He would become one of the leading advocates of American entry into the First World War, while the pioneering spirit, recuperated from obsolescence, would form part of its cultural background.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to War Writing , pp. 175 - 184Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009