The American man

The American man is part stereotype, part myth. Unlike provincial young men in Europe who retreat to large cities in order to become refined gentleman, the American man leaves civilization to find his way in nature, most often in the Wild West. Therefore, the American man is nothing like the European man; he is not a gentleman, but a man. The American man was not an intellectual and had no interest in reflection or formal study.

"Instead, he could stereotypically be found, as the explorer John Fremont described the uber-frontiersman Kit Carson, 'mounted on a fine horse without a saddle and scouring bareheaded over the prairies'" (Chapter 1, page 5).

The American man seemed to be a tourist attraction for visitors throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. The most amazing thing to foreigners was the amount of resourcefulness exhibited by the American man. This resourcefulness was "born out...