The Genesis of the Frontier Thesis: A Study in Historical Creativity. B Y RAY A L L E N BILLINGTON. (San Marino, Calif.: T h e Huntington Library, 1971. xi + 317 pp. $8.50.) Few men have h a d an influence upon the thought and the writing of American history equal to Frederick Jackson Turner. Enunciated in 1893 his frontier thesis has enlightened, directed, motivated, and in some cases angered and frustrated three generations of American historians. T u r n e r was creative and ingenious in his method, bold and sweeping in his presentation, effective in teaching, attractive and persuasive in personal qualities, and above all useful in what his work suggested to other scholars. Taken together these qualities have attracted many proteges and a goodly number of distinguished biographers. In the hands of the latter Turner's attributes have been added upon and extended. Included among those who have in greater or lesser scope undertaken biographical efforts on T u r n e r are such luminaries as Carl L. Becker and Merle Curti, both of whom wrote widely heralded essays before Turner's death. More recently Wilbur Jacobs has done a book length study, and numerous honorary publications and commentaries have appeared over the years. Now, in attracting Ray A. Billington as a biographer, T u r n e r continues to be fortunate in those who favor him with their attention and successful in extending his contributions to American history. T h e dean of living historians of the American West, Billington has made T u r n e r the object of intensive research
extending back at least to 1960. His study of T u r n e r has been productive. Numerous articles and three books have issued from Billington's fruitful quest. In The Genesis of the Frontier Thesis, Billington has made a truly worthwhile contribution. Elements of ancestor worship are obvious in his approach and, indeed, in the very fact that he sees T u r n e r as a fit subject for study. However, the real message of The Genesis is not one of veneration but one of recognition that the person, the method, and the thesis of T u r n e r continue to be relevant. In seven chapters Billington traces the emergence of the thesis in Turner's mind and its presentation in 1893 in a paper entitled " T h e Significance of the Frontier in American History." T h e influence of Turner's boyhood in the Wisconsin village of Portage is established as are his development as a scholar at the University of Wisconsin and Johns Hopkins University and the process of articulation through study, thought, and public presentation during his years as a neophyte teacher back at Wisconsin. Billington has faithfully followed T u r n e r through the multitudinous files saved by the latter—who in Billington's words was "a magpie by instinct who threw nothing away" (p. 7 ) . Collected in the main at Huntington Library, with lesser collections at Wisconsin and Harvard, Turner's papers reveal a scholar very much in touch with and
