Metropolitan Books
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
Key Metrics
- Greg Grandin
- Metropolitan Books
- Hardcover
- 9781250179821
- 9.5 X 6.3 X 1.3 inches
- 1.2 pounds
- History > United States - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
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.
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.
Author Bio
Greg Grandin, who received his doctorate at Yale University under the direction of Emilia Viotti da Costa and Gilbert Joseph, previously taught at New York University for nineteen years.
He is the author of seven books, including The Blood of Guatemala, which won the Latin American Studies Association’s Bryce Wood Award for best book published on Latin America in any discipline, The Last Colonial Massacre, Empire’s Workshop, Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Award, The Empire of Necessity, which won the Bancroft and Beveridge awards in American history, Kissinger’s Shadow, and The End of the Myth, which won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and was a finalist in the history category.
Grandin is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of American Historians. He has co-edited, with Gil Joseph, A Century of Revolution, and, with Deborah Levenson and Elizabeth Oglesby, The Guatemala Reader. Grandin has published widely, in The Nation, where he is a member of the editorial board,the London Review of Books, the New Republic, NACLA’s Report on the Americas, and the New York Times, among other venues.
He is a regular guest on Democracy Now! A revised edition of Empire’s Workshop is forthcoming.
Source: Yale University
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