"This work analyzes, compiles, and annotates three remarkable (and remarkably popular) biographical writings published originally in 1833--Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone, Life of Ma-k-tai-me-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk, and The Life of Col. David Crockett of West Tennessee--in order to show how formative these works were in creating the image of the frontier hero. Lofaro contends that, taken together, these works reinforced ideas about white masculinity, burgeoning capitalism, and American exceptionalism and nationalism in Jacksonian America"--