American Myth, American Reality

by James Oliver Robertson

Explores the functional value of the stories and metaphors of American myths to reveal America's vision of itself, including such conflicting ideals as manifest destiny and man's inalienable rights to equality and liberty

Genres: History, Nonfiction

398 pages, paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Lee Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1980, this book is an insightful examination of America’s national myths and legends, in relation to its actual history, and its popular culture (films, novels, television, etc). Robertson doesn’t seem to have any particular ideological axe to grind as he discusses the way Americans see themselves through stories and beliefs about national origins and the frontier, what it means to be an American, and how Americans keep re-defining themselves. Other topics include individualism, communities, violence, race, sex, social norms, politics, justice, religion, science, progress, technology, economics, expansion and war. Surprisingly, the name Ronald Reagan doesn’t appear anywhere, though he was about to be elected President and would exploit national myth-making and story-telling unlike any President before or since.

[Emily Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some very interesting ideas in this book but they're sometimes quite purple in their descriptions and are largely unsupported by any evidence at all. I was interested particularly in his ideas of the American Myth of the Frontier. I learned a lot in the first few chapters, but as the book went on it got a little bit more hard to wade through and the dated-ness of the work started to become tiresome. I confess to skimming through the last chapters to pull out any last good ideas.