Resumen de Imperial cleansing, or how the press rebirthed the United States in its war with Mexico, 1846-1848
The United States has been at war almost constantly since 1776. Popular culture has aided and abetted the country�s martial instincts by mythologizing these conflicts. The effect takes widely different wars and reconstitutes them to fit America�s creation story, the frontier myth, and in this way the conflicts become regenerative. That is, they tend symbolically to rebirth the nation in keeping with the frontier narrative. The frontier myth posits a tale of war that looks like this: the United States lies virginal in its innocence; suddenly, without warning and with much viciousness, the Other attacks; these actions invoke the frontier myth because the frontier, in mythical terms, is that liminal place where civilization and savagery collide; the frontier is also where America was born, fighting Indians, who in turn provide a language for framing the Other; America meets violence with violence; America responds to the initial assault with disproportionate force; because America was born in violence�versus Indians (and Great Britain), its violence relives the trauma of birth, which is in itself extremely positive because the outcome gave rise to the nation. The best articulation of the frontier myth belongs to Frederick Jackson Turner and his famous and deeply influential 1893 essay, �The Significance of the Frontier in American History.� This essay, part of a larger book project, explores how the United States press employed the frontier myth organically to characterize, frame, and �imagine� (a la Benedict Anderson) the Mexican-American War, 1846-1848.
