![HOW THE WEST WAS LONG](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1719817369/articles/Vh1HXqPe-1719836720878/HOW-THE-WEST-WAS-LONG.jpg)
Westerns are an inherently political genre, for the obvious reason that they depict (or distort or interrogate) American history. But they are also political in that they show the birth of the polis itself—the institutions of modern urban society, with their laborers, clerks, merchants, teachers, sheriffs, entertainers. Where philosophers from Plato to Rousseau sought to imagine the development of civil society from first principles, the makers of Westerns—John Ford, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh—showed it being created from the ground up, by hands-on labor.
Unlike the blank pages awaiting philosophers’ fancies, the American West was already inhabited, and the Indigenous peoples living there had well-developed social orders, so Westerns are, unavoidably, tales of conquest and subjection. Westerns, which emerged around the dawn of the twentieth century—while the westward expansion that they depicted was still going on—have often served to whitewash a bloody past and ease the mainstream conscience. If the genre has a particular bent toward mythology, it’s because this episode of American history admits of no honest telling without shame and dishonor. The Western, at its worst, is a series of convenient lies, but the genre also encompasses works that look frankly at prejudice and at crimes against humanity. In John Ford’s “The Searchers” (1956), an Indian-hating warrior goes into self-imposed exile; Robert Aldrich’s “Apache” (1954) dramatizes the heroic struggle for freedom of Geronimo’s subchief, Massai.
Denne historien er fra July 08, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra July 08, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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![What Happened To The Yuppie?– In 1979, an article by Blake Fleetwood in the Times Magazine reported a surprising phenomenon: young people were moving to big cities](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1774087/HyYIVCmPu1721815218409/crp_McGrath-New-York-Chicago-Blake-Fleetwood-Times-Magazine-books-yuppie-history-novel-Triumph-of-the-Yuppies-America.jpg)
What Happened To The Yuppie?– In 1979, an article by Blake Fleetwood in the Times Magazine reported a surprising phenomenon: young people were moving to big cities
Tom McGrath's "Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation" (Grand Central) is an entertaining recap of that period. McGrath doesn't offer a novel sociological interpretation of the yuppies. What he has to say about them would have been conventional even during their time.
![STATE OF PLAY](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/3vc8Fot_p1722251733828/STATE-OF-PLAY.jpg)
STATE OF PLAY
Politics and the real” at the Festival d‘Avignon.
![FORBIDDEN DESIRES](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/Ixejm-2yf1722251577013/FORBIDDEN-DESIRES.jpg)
FORBIDDEN DESIRES
Debussy, Strauss, and a new opera about John Singer Sargent, in Des Moines.
![BORN AGAIN](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/6vVd_RJ7M1722251363706/BORN-AGAIN.jpg)
BORN AGAIN
The past and future of Christian fundamentalism.
![THE FIN AND THE FURY](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/H6FY4f8TX1722250781639/THE-FIN-AND-THE-FURY.jpg)
THE FIN AND THE FURY
Beware of sharkless waters.
![attila](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/Xu1-SCVpP1722249756958/ATTILA.jpg)
attila
Martha got the knife away from her mother and shut her in the garage. The garage was not for cars; it had been converted by the house’s previous owners into what the broker called a “mother-in-law apartment.”
![BLOOD RELATIVES](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/JVLR6DJrI1722248424662/BLOOD-RELATIVES.jpg)
BLOOD RELATIVES
Did the U.K.’ most infamous family massacre end in a miscarriage of justice?
![UNCONVENTIONAL](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/81VHnUxeD1722247806051/UNCONVENTIONAL.jpg)
UNCONVENTIONAL
No fear and loathing in Milwaukee, just confidence.
![PLAYING THE NUMBERS](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/4KsbEi17n1722247209838/PLAYING-THE-NUMBERS.jpg)
PLAYING THE NUMBERS
My mother, the gambler.
![MY NEW THING](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1779681/U-_qX0mVq1722247135176/MY-NEW-THING.jpg)
MY NEW THING
My new thing is journaling. It was bullet journals, but now it’s journal bullets, which is where I make a quick note anytime I see a magazine. No, the other kind of magazine.