University Press of Florida Mythic Frontiers: Remebering, Forgetting, and Profiting with Cultural Herritage Tourism (Cultural Heritage Studies)

The history of the Wild West has long been fictionalized in novels, films, and television shows. Catering to these popular representations, towns across America have created tourist sites connecting such tales with historical monuments. Yet these attractions stray from known histories in favor of the embellished past visitors expect to see.In Mythic Frontiers, Daniel Maher illustrates how aggrandized versions of the past have been used to turn a profit. Examining the imagined frontier town of Fort Smith, Arkansas, Maher warns that disconnecting cultural heritage tourism from history minimizes the devastating consequences of imperialism, racism, and sexism and relegitimizes the privilege bestowed upon white men. Review "Calls for a transformation in the way cultural heritage sites present the history of the American West--one that reflects a broader, more complicated, and inclusive vision of the past. . . . An engaging and welcome addition to the field."--Journal of Anthropological Research "Drops the 'protective cloak of heritage' from the thousands of historical sites that profit from celebrating American manifest destiny. . . . From start to finish, Maher pairs the frontier complex and reality in ways that move beyond myth busting and instead ties both to changes in national discourse and the development of the tourist economy in the West."--American Indian Quarterly "An impressive study. . . . Warns of the dangers of reformulating frontier history into 'mythic' tales that carry forth historical inaccuracies and varieties of power inequality."--Journal of American Folklore "An important contribution to cultural heritage studies."--Journal of Folklore Research "Contributes meaningfully to the ongoing discussion of how Americans display and consume their complicated past."--Journal of Southern History "A fascinating and finely detailed examination of the construction and perpetuation of . . . the 'frontier complex' at the Fort Smith, Arkansas historic site."--Western Historical Quarterly About the Author Daniel R. Maher is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith, USA.