Sailing into the “wondrous now”

The myth of the American navy's world cruise

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9236399
AutoresLeroy G Dorsey (Texas A&M University, autor correspondente)
Ano1997
Volume83
Fascículo4
Páginas447-465
Data de publicação1997-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoQuarterly Journal of Speech (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0033-5630 • E-ISSN: 1479-5779
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00335639709384197
OpenAlexW1972911694
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas16

When President Theodore Roosevelt announced that America's battleship fleet was making an unprecedented world cruise, Congress condemned him for provoking foreign militancy; the media chastised him for leaving the country unprotected and went so far as to call for the president's impeachment. Despite this, the world cruise became a cause célèebre at home and abroad, helping to establish the United States as a technologically powerful and culturally sophisticated agent of world peace. This essay argues that the media's coverage, under Roosevelt's influence, mythologized the world cruise. By redefining mythic images of the universe and the hero in American culture, the popular press submerged the martial nature of the cruise. The resulting myth focused temporally on a “wondrous now” that avoided reminding audiences of its violent past and/or projecting an uncertain future

Adversary · Art · Cruise · HERO · Literature · Media studies · Mythology · Navy · Political science · Sociology · Classics · Engineering · History · Law · Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis · Military History and Strategy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies