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This book contains several essays that were written by Frederick Jackson Turner. The fist essay is titled the Significance of History and it talks about how historians have looked at historical events before. Some of the perspectives that he talked about were literary, economic, religious, and political historians. Turner goes through them all and talks about the benefits of each. He goes on, however, to say that a person must look at the big picture to understand history and realize that when you look at the past you are looking at it through a different set of eyes then those who lived through it.

In one of his most famous essays entitled The Significance of the Frontier in American History, Turner writes about how his theory of successive frontiers has affected the country. One of the more interesting things Turner says in this essay is, "The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization." Turner explains how you can take a European or and send him to the frontier and he will quickly change to a different type of person. He will turn into a person who is more American. Turner goes on to write about how the continually moving frontier has acted like a overflow valve for America. If someone is not happy where they are they can always move to wherever the frontier is at that time and start a new life. This would limit the
pressure on the Eastern states. Turner also writes about how the frontier has essentially disappeared and he feels that with its closure the first chapter in American history had come to an end.

Turner also talks about the sectioning of America. The essay says that the country is separated into many sections based on location and culture. Turner addresses the tension between the sections. Primarily between the North and South regarding the issue of slavery. He also writes how this tension formed a new section in the West because the frontiers settlers felt like they were being used by the East to try and balance out free states and slave states in the congress.

This book contains many more and detailed writings and it was an interesting read. The essays looked closely at why people thought and felt the way they did. Turner did a good job explaining his theories and was very convincing at the same time. He looked at both immigration from other countries as well as migration from within the U.S. to explain how things turned out the way they did.

Mitch Tommerdahl