![]() | The Great Frontier Subjects: Social history.; Social classes.; Labor supply.; Frontier and pioneer life.; Equality.; Emigration and immigration.; Equality.; Labor supply.; Social classes.; Emigration and immigration; Frontier and pioneer life; Social history.; A leading American historian examines the character of the frontiers of European expansion throughout the modern age, questioning a notion of frontier freedom popular since Turner. William McNeill argues that social hierarchy characterized the frontier more often than pioneer equality. As Europeans traveled to various lands, bringing new diseases to vulnerable natives, formerly isolated populations died in great numbers, creating an "open" frontier where labor was scarce. European efforts to develop frontier areas involved either a radical leveling of the hierarchies common in Europe itself or, alternatively, their sharp reinforcement by resort to slavery, serfdom, peonage, and indentured labor. |
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