| Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932) was one of the most renowned American historians and the founder of a new and important theory--- Frontier Thesis. The concept of expansion is one of the main themes of Turner's Thesis. Turner believed that America's territorial expansion into new lands was the"Manifest Destiny"in the development of its history and declared the policy of expansion was definitely one of the fundamental laws not only of the American past, but of the present and future. Not only did his theory lay the foundation for modern historical study of the American West but also exerted far-reaching impact upon American foreign policy-making at the turn of the 20th century. It seemed that American wild overseas expansion was justifiable and inevitable. Thus expansionism has become one of the cornerstones of American foreign policy. Even today it continues to influence American political thinking. In my thesis, I intend to probe how Turner's theory evolved and how it influenced the U.S. foreign policy–making as a guiding principle since the end of the nineteenth century.My thesis consists of two parts. The first part is about the theory, e.g. the main contents of Turner's Frontier Thesis and the social and historical backgrounds of the theory. Against such background as the disappearance of the frontier in 1890, the economic crisis in 1893, and American incessant demanding more markets and cheaper raw materials, Turner, in his most famous essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", consciously and eagerly attempted to explain what was happening to America from the historical perspective. Expansion, Individualism, and Democracy were the key points in the famous paper by the young historian about America's uniqueness and omnipotence. To support Turner's Thesis, some of the American famous historians, e.g. Brooks Adams, Alfred Thayer Mahan, William Graham Sumner etc, came out to defend and elaborate on the fundamental law of expansionism.The second part is the expansionary practices by the U.S. national leaders. Turner's ideas on the development of American culture's distinctive qualities and territorial expansion greatly influenced a number of U.S. policy-makers such as William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, who became the fervent disciples of Turnerism. They saw overseas expansion not only as a solution to their pressing economic problems but also as a way to relieve popular discontent,to avoid labor unrest----or even revolution, to preserve democracy, and to restore prosperity. Driven by the strong economic motives, holding the banner of spreading"Anglo-Saxon civilization, freedom and democracy", these Turnerian leaders eagerly conducted the large-scale overseas expansions all over the world to pursue new frontiers, U.S. industrial supremacy, and global domination. As the ideology of expansion in Turner's paper meets the demands of American capitalist economic development, the frontier thesis forms much of the basis for the U.S. foreign policy of expansion. In pursuit of more advantageous frontiers in different parts of the world, the United States has been making its active interventions and expansions in and out of the continents of America.However, a few distinguished scholars in the field of American history launched the comprehensive assaults on the Turner doctrine from different perspectives, e.g. Charles A. Beard, George W. Pierson, Richard Hofstadter, etc. The extremes of approval and of criticism of Turner's Frontier Thesis will offer us different ways of viewing the theory and its impact on American past.
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