Zwischen utopischem Optimismus und archaischem Gewaltkult

With his famous "Frontier Thesis" from 1893, the American historian Frederick J. Turner laid the foundation for one of the most powerful political myths of modern times: the pioneer myth of the open border ("Frontier") in the western USA. With its both timeless and utopian promise of a better existence in the Wild West, this myth continues to shape the patriotic self-image of the United States to this day. But what political influence does the Frontier myth have outside the USA? In view of cultural globalization and the popularity of this myth in Europe, can one even speak of a purely American narrative? The author Florian Traussnig addresses these questions, which have so far received little attention in research, and shows in his multifaceted analysis of Central European press texts on John F. Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Jimmy.