The American Elsewhere:
Adventure and Manliness
in the Age of Expansion

Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017
(UP Kansas) (Amazon) (Barnes and Noble)
As important cultural icons of the early nineteenth-century United States, adventurers energized the mythologies of the West and contributed to the justifications of territorial conquest. They told stories of exhilarating perils, boundless landscapes, and erotic encounters that elevated their chauvinism, avarice, and violence into forms of nobility. As self-proclaimed avatars of American exceptionalism, adventurers transformed westward expansion into a project of romantic nationalism.

A study of US expansionism from 1815–1848, The American Elsewhere delves into the “adventurelogues” of the era to reveal the emotional world of men who sought escape from the anonymity of the urban East and pressures of the Market Revolution. As volunteers, trappers, traders, or curiosity seekers, they stepped into “elsewheres,” distant and dangerous. With their words and art, they entered these unfamiliar realms that had fostered caution and apprehension, and they reimagined them as regions that awakened romantic and reckless optimism. In doing so, adventurers created the figure of the remarkable American male that generated a wide appeal and encouraged a personal investment in nationhood among their audiences.

Table of Contents

For the table of contents (Click Here).

Artwork

A list of the artwork reproduced in The American Elsewhere. Click on each image for larger full-color versions as well as more information. (Click Here).

Other Artwork

A list of artwork discussed but not reproduced in The American Elsewhere, as well as a select portrait gallery. Click on each image for larger full-color versions as well as more information. (Click Here).

Appendices

Appendix I: The Adventurers and Appendix II: Chronology of the Adventurelogue (Click Here)

About the Cover

See the Elsewheres blog for a brief essay about Charles Deas's Long Jakes (1844). (Click Here)

Reviews

Montana the Magazine of Western History (pdf)
"Bryan's work . . . is the first study in several decades to engage constructively with the relationship between expansionism and myth. And he does so with great skill. Bryan's writing ability is enviable, and The American Elsewhere is notable for both its scope and readability. There is a pleasantly meandering quality to Bryan's beautifully illustrated explorations of various adventure narratives, which nicely reflects the often meandering narratives presented by the adventurers themselves."--Amy S. Greenberg author of Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (2005) and A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico (2013)
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"As the author usefully reminds us, empires require persistent narrative reaffirmation. Stories, in other words, helped structure the expansionist impulse, and Bryan subjects those stories--an array of travel narratives, memoirs, and sensationalistic fiction--to a fascinating blend of literary and historical analysis . . . . This is a book, then, that ought to appeal across several different subfields . . . . It is, ultimately, a powerful reminder of the primary importance of storytelling to our understanding of and relationship with the world that surrounds us."--Brian Rouleau author of With Sails Whitening Every Sea (2014)

Advance Word

“American Elsewhere guides us through the tortuous and often baleful mental landscapes of American adventurers . . . . Bryan’s grasp of emotional topographies is masterful. Saddle up and follow his lead.”—Daniel Herman, author of Hell on the Range: A Story of Honor, Conscience, and the American West

“This book is a compelling investigation of how stories of Western  adventurers . . . romantically redefined the staid conventions of American manhood and thereby promoted a national ethos of manifest destiny. A unique, pivotal study in the cultural history of American exceptionalism and expansionism.”—Michael L. Johnson, author of Hunger for the Wild: America’s Obsession with the Untamed West

“In appealing, accessible prose, Bryan explores the world of the adventurer. He draws fresh insights from sources long familiar to western historians and uncovers sources long forgotten as he demonstrates the role played by romantic self-fashioning in the national project of territorial acquisition . . . . Bryan organizes his sprawling array of sources into a readable study that will interest scholars in many fields, including western and borderlands history, gender studies, and American studies.”—Monica Rico, author of Nature’s Noblemen: Transatlantic Masculinities and the Nineteenth-Century American West

Interview with Civil War Book Review

I interviewed with Tom Barber of Civil War Book Review. We talked about The American Elsewhere. Check out Civil War Book Review for the transcript.