The figure of the American Adam is a prevalent myth in US cultural history. Defined by R.W.B. Lewis in 1955 as "the hero of new adventure . . .an individual standing alone, self-reliant and self-propelling, ready to confront whatever awaited him with the aid of his own unique and
inherent resources," the figure is discernable in the American renaissance writers and in the imagery of the frontiersman, cowboy, gangster as well as in the heroes of US action movies.

Focusing on the American Adam as a paradigm of masculine identity formation, this monograph examines how this fantasy...