Territories of Empire: U.S. Writing from the Louisiana Purchase to Mexican Independence

ISBN-13: 9780190931339 / Angielski / Miękka / 2018 / 288 str.

Andy Doolen

Recenzje

In zeroing in on several key cartographic texts, Doolen reminds us not only of the significance of frontier or western writers to national development at an early nineteenth-century moment when the Atlantic seaboard's 'sophisticates' tend to receive more scholarly attention but also of the crucial role such nonstate actors played in the growth of American empire. And in covering the years 1800-30 explicitly, the author also sheds light on a neglected moment before the trope of Manifest Destiny shaped representation of the West and its peoples. What we gain from Doolen's creative periodization is added appreciation for the sense of contingency and possibilities present at a moment when US domination of the hemisphere was hardly assured...[A]n excellent book. Doolen's work speaks to scholars in several different fields, and thus stands to make a lasting contribution to our understanding of early America's nascent empire.

O autorze

Andy Doolen is Professor of English and American Studies at the University of Kentucky and the author of Fugitive Empire: Locating Early American Imperialism.