Heroism, Revisionist History, and the American West

Introduction: Shifting Historical Perspectives

Throughout recorded history, academic, political, and popular understandings of "how things are" — or in some cases, how things were — have periodically undergone dramatic refocusing. The maxims that many consider universal are not quite so universal across time. In her article Larger Than Life, Jenny Bader analyzes one such refocus: the fall of heroism, which in modern times has shifted toward a more personal and critical focus. Reading Bader's work as something of an apology gives the reader much greater clarity into the intentions and inspirations of the very historians she critiques. In a complementary work, New Horizons for the American West, Margaret Walsh offers answers to many of the questions Bader raises.

At many points in Bader's text, culpability for this cultural shift lies within the halls of academia — more specifically, with the introduction of holistic history. There are many names for the type of history Bader describes: holistic, narrative, revisionist, and even contemporary. Regardless of the label applied, the intentions hinted at in Bader's work remain consistent: to provide modern readers with the whole story. Bader expresses this tension directly:

Holistic and Revisionist History in Academia

"…like everyone who crucified a superstar, these people thought they were doing a good thing. The professors and journalists consciously moved in a positive direction — toward greater tolerance, openness, and realism — eliminating our inspiration in the process." (Bader 10)

One analogy for the collective heroes Bader discusses is the frontiersman. In her contrasting article, Walsh makes clear that through a relatively recent trend in historiography — one that attempts to include those excluded from the Euro-American male perspective — new ideas about the settlement of the West have emerged (Walsh 1):

The Frontiersman and the Myth of the American West

"The American West had been won for the benefit of a wealthy democratic nation-state. This traditional West, whether read in academically researched monographs, general textbooks or novels, or whether viewed on the large or small screens, was primarily a Euro-American male experience, often highlighted through the achievements of cowboys, homesteaders, fur traders or the United States' army." (Walsh 1)

What these new historians have found is that women, Asians, African Americans, Latinos, and many other groups were just as influential and industrious as the more traditional heroic figures (Walsh 1).

Bader also explores this theme through the image of a child who discovers she cannot dress up as a cowgirl for Halloween without a troubling sense of guilt: "They also broke the news that cowboys had brazenly taken land that wasn't theirs. I'm glad I didn't know that earlier; dressing up as a cowgirl for Halloween wouldn't have felt right." (Bader 7) Yet Bader makes equally clear that the new history trend is a mixed blessing — one that makes those in her generation and later feel cheated and deceived by the traditional histories they learned in school: "In a more urgent way I wish I had known it then so I wouldn't have to learn it now."