Frederick Jackson Turner war ein amerikanischer Historiker, dessen Werk sich darauf konzentrierte, wie die expandierende westliche Grenze die amerikanische Demokratie und den amerikanischen Charakter prägte. Seine einflussreiche „Frontier-These“ argumentierte, dass diese sich ständig bewegende Grenze der Schlüsselfaktor war, der die amerikanische Identität vom Kolonialzeitalter bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts definierte. Turner setzte sich auch für interdisziplinäre und quantitative Forschungsmethoden ein, oft mit Schwerpunkt auf dem Mittleren Westen. Seine Arbeit hat intensive Debatten ausgelöst und das historische Denken sowie die amerikanische Seele tiefgreifend beeinflusst.
Frederick Jackson Turners Essay von 1893 beweist in der Ära Trump seine zeitlose Gültigkeit. Er ist einer der klassischen Texte über Amerikas Befindlichkeit: In Gottes eigenem Land haben die Amerikaner den Auftrag, vorbildlich für die ganze Welt eine neue Gesellschaft zu errichten. Das ist ihr großes Schicksal. Turner hat die amerikanische »Frontier« im Blick, jenen Grenzbereich im Westen, der immer wieder überschritten werden soll, um neues Gelände zu erobern und zu kolonisieren. Doch was soll man tun, wenn in der ewigen Bewegung nach Westen irgendwann das Meer erreicht ist und sich keine neuen Ziele mehr anbieten? Der Amerikanist Philipp Gassert erläutert in seinem Nachwort das Amerika der Gegenwart in Rückgriff auf diese grundlegenden, seit Jahrzehnten hier erstmals neu übersetzten und kommentierten Texte.
We commonly think of the psychedelic sixties as an explosion of creative energy and freedom that arose in direct revolt against the social restraint and authoritarian hierarchy of the early Cold War years. Yet, as Fred Turner reveals in The Democratic Surround, the decades that brought us the Korean War and communist witch hunts also witnessed an extraordinary turn toward explicitly democratic, open, and inclusive ideas of communication and with them new, flexible models of social order. Surprisingly, he shows that it was this turn that brought us the revolutionary multimedia and wild-eyed individualism of the 1960s counterculture. In this prequel to his celebrated book From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Turner rewrites the history of postwar America, showing how in the 1940s and '50s American liberalism offered a far more radical social vision than we now remember. Turner tracks the influential mid-century entwining of Bauhaus aesthetics with American social science and psychology. From the Museum of Modern Art in New York to the New Bauhaus in Chicago and Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Turner shows how some of the most well-known artists and intellectuals of the forties developed new models of media, new theories of interpersonal and international collaboration, and new visions of an open, tolerant, and democratic self in direct contrast to the repression and conformity associated with the fascist and communist movements. He then shows how their work shaped some of the most significant media events of the Cold War, including Edward Steichen's Family of Man exhibition, the multimedia performances of John Cage, and, ultimately, the psychedelic Be-Ins of the sixties. Turner demonstrates that by the end of the 1950s this vision of the democratic self and the media built to promote it would actually become part of the mainstream, even shaping American propaganda efforts in Europe. Overturning common misconceptions of these transformational years, The Democratic Surround shows just how much the artistic and social radicalism of the sixties owed to the liberal ideals of Cold War America, a democratic vision that still underlies our hopes for digital media today. -- Publisher's description
Collection of essays dealing with the signifiance of the concept of frontier in American history and its influence on it. Originally published in 1920.
Using psychological trauma as its guiding metaphor, Echoes of Combat is the first book to explore the parallels between the healing of Vietnam veterans and Americans' collective recovery from the war. Drawing on such diverse sources as films, novels, television series, political speeches, monuments, medical texts, and inside accounts of the men's movement, Fred Turner shows how the healing narratives of individuals have allowed us to transform our recollections of our aggression in Vietnam into tales of national sacrifice.
Details the story of a group of San Francisco Bay Area entrepreneurs - Stewart
Brand and the Whole Earth network. While tracing the transformation of how our
networked culture came to be, this book reminds us that the distance between
the Grateful Dead and Google, between Ken Kesey and the computer itself, is
not as great as we might think.
This hugely influential work marked a turning point in US history and culture,
arguing that the nation's expansion into the Great West was directly linked to
its unique spirit: a rugged individualism forged at the juncture between
civilization and wilderness, which - for better or worse - lies at the heart
of American identity today.
Turner offers a detailed exploration of French politics in the early years of the United States, focusing on the key players and debates surrounding France's involvement in the Mississippi valley. Drawing on primary sources and extensive research, he provides a nuanced account of this pivotal period in American history.
