“Future historians will continue to examine the history of American masculinity, and, with this compelling new analysis of the hyper-masculine adventurelogue, Bryan has ensured that his The American Elsewhere be a valuable part of that research.”—Cleveland Review of Books
"Bryan’s remarkable collection of sources convincingly captures a cultural moment."—Kansas History
"Full of fascinating detail put in service of a strongly expressed and important argument, it merits the attention of all historians of the American West and of American masculinity."—American Historical Review
"Bryan’s account of adventurers and adventurelogue is filled with inviting tales and is solidly grounded in the scholarship of history, literary analysis, and anthropology."—Journal of American History
"[Offers] rich insight into antebellum masculinity."—Diplomatic History
"The admirable detailed scholarship and deft use of manliness as construction allow The American Elsewhere to show convincingly how the ideal and the reality of the adventurer with its promise of renewed male vitality energized U.S. expansion."—Pacific Historical Review
"Scholars interested in understanding how changing ideas of masculinity contributed to the expansion of the United States from 1815 to 1848 should read Bryan’s book. Furthermore, historians who want to see how the fresh examination of seemingly trite literary texts can lead to exciting new insights should also read this scholarship."—Journal of Arizona History
"For a more nuanced perspective, Bryan consulted original sources and contemporary scholarship to show what the frontier meant to the people who went there."—Chronicles of Oklahoma
"A fascinating and tirelessly researched examination of the adventurer’s construction of American masculinity and exceptionalism."—Great Plains Quarterly
"Intriguing and insightful."—Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"[Bryan] offers a sophisticated argument that complements previous scholarship and reaffirms the importance of adventure narratives in the story of US culture in the 19th century."—Choice
"A marvelous new study. . . . Bryans investigation in the self-fashioning of adventurers in the first half of the nineteenth century grounds the literature of adventure within the larger Romantic movement of the period and makes a convincing argument that particular practices of masculinity, driven by a yearning for dashing exploits and romantic exploration among readers, naturalized the use of violence in the service of America’s perceived destiny."—Montana The Magazine of Western History
“American Elsewhere guides us through the tortuous and often baleful mental landscapes of American adventurers in the time of Jackson. In chasing the chimera of genuine experience, Bryan’s subjects create both a brotherhood of sentiment and geography of racial difference. 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 (explorers, patriot warriors, and men of enterprise) from the end of the War of 1812 to the end of the U.S.-Mexican War 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, it is well researched and plentifully documented, argued with judicious balance and critical discernment, and quite readable.”—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. He shows us how white men imagined, enacted, and narrated their adventures in contested spaces and thereby contributed to changing concepts of gender, race, and class in a tumultuous era of market revolution and aggressive border warfare. 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
