In Smithsonian Magazine, Nationhood Lab Director Colin Woodard shares the backstory of one of the United States's misguided national origin stories. Frederick Jackson Turner's massively influential and deeply flawed Frontier Thesis, which dominated the teaching and public understanding of American history for half a century after it was first presented at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, was a cul-de-sac of nationhood building
Most Americans say they support the liberal democratic values at the core of the American Experiment, but would they actually do so in practice when doing so might not help their “side” obtain or sustain power? The answer, according to our latest surveys, is “yes,” for most Americans, but not necessarily on the American right.
