02471cam a2200361 i 4500 1390590018 TxAuBib 20240806120000.0 240529s2024||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u bl2024012151 9781324091776 HRD 35.00 1324091770 HRD 35.00 TxAuBib rda Parkinson, Robert G., author. Heart of American darkness [BOOK] : bewilderment and horror on the early frontier / Robert G. Parkinson. First edition. New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2024] xxxiii, 443 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages 389-437) and index. "We are divided over the history of the United States, and one of the central dividing lines is the frontier. Was it a site of heroism? Or was it where the full force of an all-powerful empire was brought to bear on Native peoples? In Heart of American Darkness, historian Robert Parkinson presents a new account of ever-shifting encounters between white colonists and Native Americans. Drawing skillfully on Joseph Conrad’s famous novella, Heart of Darkness, he demonstrates that imperialism in North America was neither heroic nor a perfectly planned conquest. It was, rather, as bewildering, violent, and haphazard as the European colonization of Africa, which Conrad knew firsthand and fictionalized in his masterwork. Parkinson argues that American history is, in fact, tied to the frontier, just not in the ways we are often told. Altering our understanding of the past, he also shows what this new understanding should mean for us today.". 20240806. Frontier and pioneer life United States 18th century. Racism United States History 18th century. United States History Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775. United States History Revolution, 1775-1783. United States Politics and government 18th century. United States Race relations Political aspects History 18th century. United States Race relations History 18th century. United States Politics and government 1775-1783.