Volume 44, Number 4 · March 6, 1997
American Adam
By Garry Wills
Why, according to the annual Harris Poll of Americans, was John Wayne the Number One Movie Star as recently as 1995? He embodies the American myth. The archetypal American is a displaced person—arrived from a rejected past, breaking into a glorious future, on the move, fearless himself, feared by others, a killer but cleansing the world of things that 'need killing,' loving but not bound down by love, rootless but carrying the Center in himself, a gyroscopic direction-setter, a traveling norm.
Feature, 5020 words
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