Exploring the Next Frontier
Vietnam, NASA, Star Trek and Utopia in 1960s and 70s American Myth and History
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:22nd Mar '19
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£150.00(9781138188570)
The 1960s and early 70s saw the evolution of Frontier Myths even as scholars were renouncing the interpretive value of myths themselves. Works like Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War exemplified that rejection using his experiences during the Vietnam War to illustrate the problematic consequences of simple mythic idealism. Simultaneously, Americans were playing with expanded and revised versions of familiar Frontier Myths, though in a contemporary context, through NASA’s lunar missions, Star Trek, and Gerard K. O’Neill’s High Frontier.
This book examines the reasons behind the exclusion of Frontier Myths to the periphery of scholarly discourse, and endeavors to build a new model for understanding their enduring significance. This model connects NASA’s failed attempts to recycle earlier myths, wholesale, to StarTrek’s revision of those myths and rejection of the idea of a frontier paradise, to O’Neill’s desire to realize such a paradise in Earth’s orbit. This new synthesis defies the negative connotations of Frontier Myths during the 1960s and 70s and attempts to resuscitate them for relevance in the modern academic context.
ISBN: 9780367263966
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 444g
256 pages