Moreover, he synthesizes the imaginative expression of Western myths and symbols in literature with their role in contemporary politics, economics, and society, embodied in such forms as the idea of Manifest Destiny, the conflict in the American mind between idealizations of primitivism on the one hand and of progress and civilization on the other, the Homestead Act of 1862, and public-land policy after the Civil War. The myths of the American West that found their expression in nineteenth-century words and deeds remain a part of every American's heritage, and Smith, with his insight into their power and significance, makes possible a critical appreciation of that heritage.
Click for the original review.
Background Information
Walt Whitman was an American poet of the mid nineteenth century, best known for his work, Leaves of Grass. Manifest destinty was the view that America's domination of the North American continent from sea to sea was the manifest intention of God.