This book is the first comprehensive study of antebellum depictions of the non-European world. Drawing on well-known works and archival discoveries, both artistic and textual, it proposes that U.S. cultural history cannot be fully understood unless we take into account how Americans regarded tropical America, the Holy Land, Polynesia, and Africa. The author first analyzes American geographical textbooks, arguing that through their hierarchical, racialized representations of the world's geobodies the American nation became embodied, was able to see itself on a global stage ushering the...

This book is the first comprehensive study of antebellum depictions of the non-European world. Drawing on well-known works and archival discoveries, both artistic and textual, it proposes that U.S. cultural history cannot be fully understood unless we take into account how Americans regarded tropical America, the Holy Land, Polynesia, and Africa. The author first analyzes American geographical textbooks, arguing that through their hierarchical, racialized representations of the world's geobodies the American nation became embodied, was able to see itself on a global stage ushering the...