Cowboy Imperialism and Hollywood Film explores how Hollywood has employed the frontier myth to sanction imperial behavior. This cultural project integrates the myth, America’s secular creation story, with Manifest Destiny, the sugar-coated impetus to conquer without compunction. Through Hollywood – the history teacher who reaches the largest audiences – the imagery of conquest has become effectively naturalized, glorified, and personified in the guise of the mythical frontiersman, such as John Wayne and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. This book examines eighteen movies, ranging from The Green Berets to Raiders of the Lost Ark, from Red River to Hidalgo. Others, from Full Metal Jacket to The Big Lebowski, The Ballad of Little Joe to 25th Hour, posit intriguing revisionist frontier tales.

Cowboy Imperialism and Hollywood Film explores how Hollywood has employed the frontier myth to sanction imperial behavior. This cultural project integrates the myth, America’s secular creation story, with Manifest Destiny, the sugar-coated impetus to conquer without compunction. Through Hollywood – the history teacher who reaches the largest audiences – the imagery of conquest has become effectively naturalized, glorified, and personified in the guise of the mythical frontiersman, such as John Wayne and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. This book examines eighteen movies, ranging from The Green Berets to Raiders of the Lost Ark, from Red River to Hidalgo. Others, from Full Metal Jacket to The Big Lebowski, The Ballad of Little Joe to 25th Hour, posit intriguing revisionist frontier tales.