The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

by Greg Grandin

Overview

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE

A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall.

Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America hasa new symbol: the border wall.

In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home.

It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250179821
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/05/2019
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Greg Grandin is the author of Fordlandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A professor of history at New York University, Grandin has published a number of other widely acclaimed books, including Empire's Workshop, Kissinger's Shadow, and The Empire of Necessity, which won the Bancroft Prize.

Table of Contents

Introduction Fleeing Forward 1

1 All That Space 11

2 The Alpha and the Omega 31

3 A Caucasian Democracy 47

4 The Safety Valve 68

5 Are You Ready for All These Wars? 83

6 The True Relief 100

7 The Outer Edge 113

8 The Pact of 1898 132

9 A Fortress on the Frontier 148

10 A Psychological Twist 168

11 A Golden Harvest 185

12 Some Demonic Suction Tube 201

13 More, More, More 214

14 The New Preümptor 232

15 Crossing the Blood Meridian 249

Epilogue The Significance of the Wall in American History 267

A Note on Sources and Other Matters 277

Notes 293

Acknowledgments 353

Index 355

Editorial Reviews

It is the mission of this fine, elegantly written history to explore the ever-shifting role of the frontier in the American story…But The End of the Myth has a shadow theme. How is it, Grandin wants to know, that the symbol of America was once a boundless, beckoning frontier and today is a dark and forbidding wall?…This is a measured, careful work, not a "People's History" polemic. Grandin is a fine explainer with a knack for pithy summary.

The New York Times Book Review - Edward Dolnick

11/19/2018
As New York University historian Grandin observes, President Trump’s aim of building a wall along the American border with Mexico breaks the nation’s tradition of “fleeing forward” to a supposedly ever-expanding frontier, in the hope of “avoid a true reckoning with its social problems.” He recounts that, in the 1760s, the British Crown’s refusal to allow white settlers to move across the Appalachian Mountains became one of the many grievances that sparked the American Revolution. As the U.S. became ever more industrial and capitalist, the supposedly empty lands to the west promised prosperity and freedom for poor white men and expansionary opportunities for the sons of Southern planters, as well as new uses for surplus slaves. In the wake of the Civil War, white Americans could look westward to rejuvenate the nation, and some African-Americans created new lives in all-black farming communities isolated from the threat of racism. To Grandin, Trump’s rhetoric about physically closing the southern border symbolizes the end of centuries of belief that ongoing geographical or trade-based expansion will ensure resources are plentiful enough that “everyone can be free”; without that mind-set, he argues, there’s nowhere in the U.S. for Americans to go to escape the country’s internal problems. This is a deeply polemical work, and should be read as such, but it offers a provocative historical exploration of a contentious current issue. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2018-12-03

A history of how America's conception of its borders reflects its changing identity.

From the time of the country's founding, the frontier has had mythical significance, symbolizing limitless opportunity and grand ambition. Today, that expansive idea has been replaced with that of an isolating border wall. In an authoritative and compelling analysis, Bancroft Prize winner Grandin (History/New York Univ.; Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman, 2015, etc.) traces America's evolution from the 18th century to the present, as expressed in the metaphorical meaning of frontier. "Where the frontier symbolized perennial rebirth, a culture in springtime," he contends, the wall now reflects "a conspiratorial nihilism, rejecting reason and dreading change." The author locates the mythology of the frontier in an essay by historian Frederick Jackson Turner, who "emancipated the concept of ‘frontier,' unhitched it from its more mundane earthbound means—used to indicate a national border or a military front—and let it float free as an abstraction" that signified "an aspiration." The vast, open West portended political equality and unlimited natural resources, independence and individualism: deeply held—though idealistic and overly romantic—values. Democratic values surely did not shape pioneers' treatment of Native Americans, who were slaughtered, displaced, and forcibly segregated; nor of African-Americans, who never shared in the apparently bountiful economic and political rewards of westward expansion. Virulent racism infected the concept of frontier during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, which was characterized by the brutal campaigns of the Indian Removal Act. At a time of fast-paced change, urban growth, and economic volatility, Jackson promised to rein in government intrusion and restore "primitive simplicity and purity." Throughout the 19th century, Grandin amply shows, the nation became involved in wars in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, the Pacific, and Southeast Asia that redefined the relationship of frontier to domination, exploitation, and "the panic of power." Trump's border wall, writes the author, "is a monument to disenchantment," resentment, and rage.

An engaging and disquieting analysis of America's recurring choice between "a humane ethic of social citizenship" and barbarism.

Kirkus Reviews

WINNER OF THE 2020 PULITZER PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION

“An essential, sweeping history of the American frontier, its end and what it has meant to our nation’s sense of itself.”
—Los Angeles Times

“The End of the Myth aims, in part, to reposition race-based violence to the center of the frontier narrative [and] situate today’s calls to fortify our borders in relation to the centuries of racial animus that preceded them... A vital corrective to popular conceptions.”
—The New Yorker

"As bracing an analysis of post-2016 America as any I have read. Grandin’s book is so sharply argued, so rooted in careful historical detail, so morally clear, that it makes a strong claim to be the most essential political text yet to emerge from the shock of Trump’s election."
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“The End of the Myth kicks hard-packed certainties into dust as Grandin strides across three centuries... to supply rich new context to familiar events and pluck neglected ones from the shadows.”
—American Scholar

"Subtle but highly readable . . . Like any good historian-poet, Grandin creates spiritual through-lines that pull his readers inexorably along the path of America’s westward expansion, making us take responsibility for bloody events we may never have learned about but certainly should have."
—The Virginian-Pilot

“One of our most gifted writers and thinkers, Greg Grandin has given us a history of the United States like none other. It is a history written from our ever-shifting and expanding borders, a history of our quest to escape history, and a history of how that history has now caught up with us. The End of the Myth bubbles with ideas, insights, and challenges (and often with wry humor), offering essential perspective on our current condition.”
—Steven Hahn, author of A Nation Under Our Feet

“A great book. Brilliant, erudite, and above all else fresh, The End of Myth offers a genuinely new, compelling, and historically informed framework for understanding the madness of this political moment.”
—Chris Hayes, author of A Colony in a Nation

“Many historians have recounted the legend-encrusted saga of American expansionism. Written with insight, passion, and uncompromising moral clarity, The End of the Myth renders all prior interpretations obsolete. The Age of Trump needs history that is both bold and subversive. On both counts, Greg Grandin delivers.”
—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Twilight of the American Century

“‘If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists,’ Cecil Rhodes once said. The End of the Myth trenchantly relates how an American dream of expansion and growth managed to contain domestic disaffection, and reveals the perils of a shattered imperial fantasy. Describing the consequences of an exhausted imperialism, Grandin illuminates, like few have, our treacherous present. A tremendous book.”
—Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger

“What happens when expansion is no longer viable as a promise for the nation’s future and as a fix for its problems? Greg Grandin’s analysis of our current political moment is historical, erudite, provocative, and beautifully written.”
—Mae Ngai, author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

“A compelling examination of the American history of frontiers, by one of the most innovative and imaginative historians in any field. Troubling but inspiring, this is intellectual history for a broad readership; its sweep and force are stunning. Grandin brilliantly gives our current conditions of aggression, nostalgia, and racism deep historical grounding for the benefit of all who will listen.”
—David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

“This book is an extraordinarily incisive look at the myths that Americans have used to evade our real situation and the responsibilities we might have to one another as members of a democracy. It is also a rich, illuminating, and unsettling retelling of American history as the story of these evasions and the harm they have done—and the countercurrents we might still hope to draw on to build a deeper and better democracy.”
—Jedediah Purdy, author of After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene

From the Publisher

Narrator Eric Paulins does a serviceable job with this audiobook, whose central debate is over which symbol we want to best represent our nation—the open frontier or the border wall. He is easy to understand and presents each word flawlessly, using a low-pitched voice with a slightly nasal tone. Paulins also succeeds at putting some emotion behind his narration to push this history along. Diction, though, can be tricky, and Paulins sounds like he is delivering each word individually in a staccato intonation rather than weaving them together into sentences and ideas that flow and coalesce around a theme. Picking up his pace would have helped make this audiobook a more seamless experience. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2019 - AudioFile

Narrator Eric Paulins does a serviceable job with this audiobook, whose central debate is over which symbol we want to best represent our nation—the open frontier or the border wall. He is easy to understand and presents each word flawlessly, using a low-pitched voice with a slightly nasal tone. Paulins also succeeds at putting some emotion behind his narration to push this history along. Diction, though, can be tricky, and Paulins sounds like he is delivering each word individually in a staccato intonation rather than weaving them together into sentences and ideas that flow and coalesce around a theme. Picking up his pace would have helped make this audiobook a more seamless experience. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

APRIL 2019 - AudioFile