Presents a view of the American frontier, as it was seen by literate Europeans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Prologue: early visions of the new world. Nature glorified: the golden age ; Nature degraded: the view from America ; Nature in eclipse: seventeenth-century rationalism ; Nature glorified: the age of romanticism ; The noble savage ; The changing image: the captivity narratives. -- The image-makers: land of savagery. Europe's Coopermania ; The cult of the western ; Beginnings of realism: the early novelists ; The impact of the western ; The sensationalists. -- The image-makers: land of promise. The promoters ; The "America letters" ; The travelers. -- The look of the land. The woodlands frontier ; The prairies and the plains ; Mountains and deserts of the far west -- Native Americans: from noble to ignoble savagery. Europeanizing the noble savage ; "Bad" Indians: evil incarnate ; The ignoble savage. -- Native Americans: doomed to extermination. Frontier savagery: the European view ; Official savagery: federal Indian policy ; Extermination justified: the imperialistic view ; Extermination deplored: the humanitarian view. -- The frontiersmen: heroes vs. villains. Hunters and plainsmen ; Squatters and backwoodsmen ; Enter the cowboy. -- Pioneer farmers: unsung heroes. Portrait of the pioneer ; Cultural decay -- or renaissance? ; Religious fanaticism ; Uncivilized manners. -- Europeans view the western character. Frontier materialism ; Frontier wastefulness ; The restless temper ; Optimism and the spirit of progress ; The work ethic ; Frontier ingenuity ; Frontier puffing. -- Land of opportunity. The garden of the world ; The American urge ; The lure of pioneering ; The rewards of labor ; Frontier success -- and failure. -- Land of Equality. The basis of frontier equality ; Frontier equality ; Frontier liberty ; Frontier democracy. -- Land of savagery. Centers of lawlessness: the Mississippi valley ; Centers of lawlessness: the far west ; Frontier law enforcement ; Frontier nativism. -- The European reaction. Emigration and its impact ; The political impact ; The social impact. -- Epilogue: the persisting image. The role of western fiction ; Celluloid westerns ; Frontier cultism ; The image in modern perspective.