Perspectives

This part of the study guide is designed to help you put “The Frontier Heritage” by Edward N. Kearny into perspective, by connecting it to questions in your textbook, relevance today, and similar works.

Relevance today

Published in 1984, “The Frontier Heritage” is still relevant today because it deals with general, typical American values resulting from American history. The text can help us understand why Americans have certain values or act in certain ways, even today. Through the text, we can begin to understand why Americans lay value on being competitive...

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Thematic perspective

For the theme of American values, we recommend that you also think of other texts that deal with these aspects. For instance, poems like “A Nation’s Strength” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Worlds of English, p. 113) or “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus (Worlds of English, p. 101), explore in a lyrical way some of the classic values of American society.

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Textual perspective

In your textbook, you are asked to discuss how, after settling the whole land from east to west, Americans have expanded the idea of frontier so that it could be used in connection with space science or even politics, that a creative mind is always looking for new frontiers to be discovered.

We encourage you to reflect on America’s current position in each of the areas mentioned: space, science, and politics.

Right now, the US is the leading country when it comes to space exploration.

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