The American settlers came to take and shape the land. The first occupants of the land — the "Indians" whom the European migrants encountered — would not be treated, in the pattern of the Romans, as people to be incorporated into an empire. Instead, they were treated as part of the landscape. Most of them were simply cleared away, like the forest, or pushed back, like the wilderness.

— Daniel J. Boorstin The Republic of Technology (1978)

More quotes by Daniel J. Boorstin

The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (1992)

The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1961)

The Republic of Technology (1978)

The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948)

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Daniel J. Boorstin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.