Patricia Nelson Limerick in The Legacy of Conquest portrayed the American West from a new revisionist perspective challenging the standing interpretation of Fredrick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis.” Turner’s thesis argued that democracy in America was formed by the American frontier. Each time the frontier line moved it gained new strength. He noted the ending of the land frontier with the U.S. Census of 1890s statement the American frontier had broken up. Turner’s thesis also influenced the interpretation of thousands of scholarly histories. Unfortunately, it excluded much more than it contained including women. As a result, the concept of the frontier implied a disjointedness between the past and present of the West while muddying matters resulting from the past. Limerick’s view of the American West exposed its myths and falsehoods of the past. In doing so she posed the idea of the West as undergoing conquest while never escaping it aftermath. In Legacy of Conquest, she interwove its history as part of the continuing story the United States’ development. The book’s central themes were the conquest of minorities and the western environment while revealing the corruptible insensitive nature of the conquerors. Limerick dealt with the settlement of the…show more content… Ironically westerners proclaimed their individualism and independence while holding out their hands for federal assistance particularly in controlling Indians, disbursing land, and subsidizing transportation. Within her examples, Limerick portrayed life of the West at the hands of individuals who wanted to find a job and make a living which was subjected to the region’s instability as the West was plagued by boom-and-bust cycles causing any hope of
