El. knyga: Nation's Nature: How Continental Presumptions Gave Rise to the United States of America

Hooking geography to imagination, to cultural influences, to national identity, and to political action, Drake (Metropolitan State College of Denver) offers an illuminating study of American history. He begins with the preconditions for American independence and their roots in conceptions of the continent and scientific trends. He then discusses nature, nationalism, and the imperial context of the 18th century as forces underlying the creation of the continental empire. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) These ideas, in turn, solidified American nationalism, spurred a revolution, and shaped the ratification of the Constitution.Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an outstanding work of scholarship in eighteenth–century studies In one of Common Sense’s most ringing phrases, Thomas Paine declared it absurd for a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. Such powerful words, coupled with powerful ideas, helped spur the United States to independence.In The Nations Nature, James D. Drake examines how a relatively small number of inhabitants of the Americas, huddled along North America’s east coast, came to mentally appropriate the entire continent and to think of their nation as America. Drake demonstrates how British North American colonists’ participation in scientific debates and imperial contests shaped their notions of global geography. These ideas, in turn, solidified American nationalism, spurred a revolution, and shaped the ratification of the Constitution.Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an outstanding work of scholarship in eighteenth–century studies