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Stephen Aron's A Very Short Introduction

547 Words3 Pages

Preconceptions on how history plays itself out can often be found wrong, when it comes to the topic of the West. The reason why they are wrong is because of the way media portrays it. Media talks about it in a way that glorifies, and summerizes it rather than showing the coldhearted truth and the beginning of it all. Stephen Aron, a professor at University of California, Los Angeles writes about his view of the American west. Oxford University came to him when they were looking for an author to write about the Western history for the series " A Very Short Introduction". This book, “ A Very Short Introduction” , talks about the hundreds of years before the West was America. Most Westerns end with the closing of the frontier, which was supposedly at the end of the 19th century. Aron goes on to tell the bigger picture of it all rather than what others appear to write. Aron talks a bout how the West goes back to the generation of pop culture through novels, paintings, and shows. The Westerns dominated the scene and topic for the first half of the century for Hollywood. The popular, view is one that the ‘Wild West’ and the ‘Old …show more content…

It also prepared me for another class I am taking called World Civilizations. I enjoyed Aron’s approach on it all, where he educated and validated others on their views of the West. Then he uses facts and history to expand that view in a more broad way. I think he was very well written and wasn’t offensive but educated myself, as well as others on the bigger picture of it all. The war occurred in the South Western quadrant of the “Great West”. The Indians decreased in size drastically which later lead the Americans to have to find there own way of life, rather than following in the Indians guided footsteps. The Indians had learned what would work and what would not but life for the Americans’ consisted of them finding out for

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