Richard Slotkin – författare

Longlisted for the National Book Award in NonfictionLonglisted for the Edwards Book AwardA Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year“Sweeping…A new way to make sense not only of the past, but of the contemporary culture wars.” —New York Times Book Review“A provocative culmination of Slotkin’s field-defining arguments on the place of violence in creating America.” —Kathleen Belew“Brisk, bold, and thought-provoking.” —Daniel Lazare, Arts Fuse “[An] exciting and detailed new decoder ring of a book…While it is usually hyperbolic to claim that a book will change your life, this one may well have a permanent effect on how you consume and think about American political news.” —Tom Zoellner, Los Angeles Review of BooksRed America and Blue America are so divided they could be two different countries, with wildly diverging views of why government exists and who counts as American. Their ideologies are grounded in different versions of American history, endorsing irreconcilable visions of patriotism and national identity. A Great Disorder is a bold, urgent work that helps us make sense of today’s culture wars through a brilliant reconsideration of America’s foundational myths and their use in contemporary politics. Richard Slotkin identifies five key narratives that have shaped our conception of what it means to be American: the myths of the Frontier, the Founding, the Civil War (with dueling views of it as Liberation or the Lost Cause), and the Good War. Today, Slotkin argues, Trump and his MAGA followers play up a frontier-inspired hostility to the federal government and rally around Confederate symbols to champion a racially exclusive definition of American nationality; meanwhile, Blue America takes its cue from the protest movements of the 1960s, envisioning a limitlessly pluralistic country in which the federal government is the ultimate enforcer of rights and opportunities. With these opposing perspectives, American history—and the foundations of our democracy—has become a battleground. It remains to be seen which vision will prevail.

In Regeneration Through Violence, the first of his trilogy on the mythology of the American West, Richard Slotkin shows how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from the social and psychological anxieties of European settlers struggling in a strange new world to claim the land and displace the Native Americans. Using the popular literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries-including captivity narratives, the Daniel Boone tales, and the writings of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville-Slotkin traces the full development of this myth.

For the newly established New England colonies, the war with the Indians of 1675-77 was a catastrophe that pushed the settlements perilously close to worldly ruin. Moreover, it seemed to call into question the religious mission and spiritual status of a group that considered itself a Chosen People, carrying out a divinely inspired "errand into the wilderness." Seven texts reprinted here reveal efforts of Puritan writers to make sense of King Philip's War. Largely unavailable since the 19th century, they represent the various divisions of Puritan society and literary forms typical of Puritan writing, from which emerged some of the most vital genres of American popular writing. Thoroughly annotated, the book contains a general introduction and introductions to each text.

In the summer of 1862, after a year of protracted fighting, Abraham Lincoln decided on a radical change of strategy—one that abandoned hope for a compromise peace and committed the nation to all-out war. The centerpiece of that new strategy was the Emancipation Proclamation: an unprecedented use of federal power that would revolutionize Southern society. In The Long Road to Antietam, Richard Slotkin, a renowned cultural historian, reexamines the challenges that Lincoln encountered during that anguished summer 150 years ago. In an original and incisive study of character, Slotkin re-creates the showdown between Lincoln and General George McClellan, the “Young Napoleon” whose opposition to Lincoln included obsessive fantasies of dictatorship and a military coup. He brings to three-dimensional life their ruinous conflict, demonstrating how their political struggle provided Confederate General Robert E. Lee with his best opportunity to win the war, in the grand offensive that ended in September of 1862 at the bloody Battle of Antietam.

The people of Greenhorns reflect the different ways Jewish immigrants took to America in the early 20th century, and how America affected them. A kosher butcher with a gambling problem. A Jewish Pygmalion. A woman whose elegant persona conceals the memory of an unspeakable horror. A boy who struggles to maintain his father’s old-world code of honor on the mean streets of Brooklyn. The “little man who wasn’t there,” whose absence reflects his family’s inability to deal with its painful memories. An immigrant’s son who “discovers America” — its promise and its dark side — as a soldier on leave in WW2. These tales recover the violent circumstances, the emotional and psychological costs of uprooting, which left the immigrant uncertain of his place in America, and show how that uncertainty shaped the lives of their American descendants.

National Book Award Finalist: The “impressive” conclusion to the “magisterial trilogy on the mythology of violence in American history” (Film Quarterly). “The myth of the Western frontier—which assumes that whites’ conquest of Native Americans and the taming of the wilderness were preordained means to a progressive, civilized society—is embedded in our national psyche. U.S. troops called Vietnam ‘Indian country.’ President John Kennedy invoked ‘New Frontier’ symbolism to seek support for counterinsurgency abroad. In an absorbing, valuable, scholarly study, [the author] traces the pervasiveness of frontier mythology in American consciousness from 1890. . . . Dime novels and detective stories adapted the myth to portray gallant heroes repressing strikers, immigrants and dissidents. Completing a trilogy begun with Regeneration Through Violence and The Fatal Environment, Slotkin unmasks frontier mythmaking in novels and Hollywood movies. The myth’s emphasis on use of force over social solutions has had a destructive impact, he shows.” —Publishers Weekly “Stirring . . . Breaks new ground in its careful explication of the continuing dynamic between politics and myth, myth and popular culture.” —The New York Times “A subtle and wide-ranging examination how America’s fascination with the frontier has affected its culture and politics. . . . Intellectual history at its most stimulating—teeming with insights into American violence, politics, class, and race.” —Kirkus Reviews

National Book Award Finalist: A study of national myths, lore, and identity that “will interest all those concerned with American cultural history” (American Political Science Review).Winner of the American Historical Association’s Albert J. Beveridge Award for Best Book in American History In Regeneration Through Violence, the first of his trilogy on the mythology of the American West, historian and cultural critic Richard Slotkin demonstrates how the attitudes and traditions that shape American culture evolved from the social and psychological anxieties of European settlers struggling in a strange new world to claim the land and displace Native Americans. Using the popular literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries—including captivity narratives, the Daniel Boone tales, and the writings of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Melville—Slotkin traces the full development of this myth. “Deserves the careful attention of everyone concerned with the history of American culture or literature. ”—Comparative Literature “Slotkin’s large aim is to understand what kind of national myths emerged from the American frontier experience. . . . [He] discusses at length the newcomers’ search for an understanding of their first years in the New World [and] emphasizes the myths that arose from the experiences of whites with Indians and with the land.” —Western American Literature

A two-time National Book Award finalist’s “ambitious and provocative” look at Custer’s Last Stand, capitalism, and the rise of the cowboys-and-Indians legend (The New York Review of Books). In The Fatal Environment, historian Richard Slotkin demonstrates how the myth of frontier expansion and subjugation of Native Americans helped justify the course of America’s rise to wealth and power. Using Custer’s Last Stand as a metaphor for what Americans feared might happen if the frontier should be closed and the “savage” element be permitted to dominate the “civilized,” Slotkin shows the emergence by 1890 of a mythos redefined to help Americans respond to the confusion and strife of industrialization and imperial expansion. “A clearly written, challenging and provocative work that should prove enormously valuable to serious students of American history.” —The New York Times “[An] arresting hypothesis.” —Henry Nash Smith, American Historical Review

In this richly researched and dramatic work of military history, eminent historian Richard Slotkin recounts one of the Civil War’s most pivotal events: the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. At first glance, the Union’s plan seemed brilliant: A regiment of miners would burrow beneath a Confederate fort, pack the tunnel with explosives, and blow a hole in the enemy lines. Then a specially trained division of African American infantry would spearhead a powerful assault to exploit the breach created by the explosion. Thus, in one decisive action, the Union would marshal its mastery of technology and resources, as well as demonstrate the superior morale generated by the Army of the Potomac’s embrace of emancipation. At stake was the chance to drive General Robert E. Lee’s Army of North Virginia away from the defense of the Confederate capital of Richmond–and end the war. The result was something far different. The attack was hamstrung by incompetent leadership and political infighting in the Union command. The massive explosion ripped open an immense crater, which became a death trap for troops that tried to pass through it. Thousands of soldiers on both sides lost their lives in savage trench warfare that prefigured the brutal combat of World War I. But the fighting here was intensified by racial hatred, with cries on both sides of “No quarter!” In a final horror, the battle ended with the massacre of wounded or surrendering Black troops by the Rebels–and by some of their White comrades in arms. The great attack ended in bloody failure, and the war would be prolonged for another year. With gripping and unforgettable depictions of battle and detailed character portraits of soldiers and statesmen, No Quarter compellingly re-creates in human scale an event epic in scope and mind-boggling in its cost of life. In using the Battle of the Crater as a lens through which to focus the political and social ramifications of the Civil War–particularly the racial tensions on both sides of the struggle–Richard Slotkin brings to readers a fresh perspective on perhaps the most consequential period in American history.From the Hardcover edition.