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Distributed for Reaktion Books

Representing the Republic

Mapping the United States 1600-1900

Representing the Republic provides an intriguing account of the mapping of America from its colonial origins to 1900. The most significant maps and mapmakers are discussed in a survey that begins with the first European mappings of New Netherlands in the early seventeenth century and concludes with the Rand McNally atlases of the 1890s.

Maps tell us a great deal about the transformation of America’s national identity. Having undertaken extensive research in map collections, including work with rare archival materials, prominent geographer John Rennie Short provides an account of how maps have both embodied and reflected power, conflict and territorial expansion over time, opening a new perspective on North American history and geography.

Distribution by the University of Chicago Press only to customers in the USA and Canada. Customers elsewhere should visit the UK website of Reaktion Books.


272 pages | 6 x 9

Globalities

Culture Studies

Geography: Cartography

History: General History


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Reviews

"Short’s fascinating and generously illustrated book examines the changing face of maps as ’social constructions’ in the new found land over three centuries."

The Guardian

"This is an important work that students of the history of American cartography will want to own."

Imago Mundi

"This is a fascinating book about the mapping (c. 1600-1900) of the land that came to be called the United States of America. . . . The reader is treated to vignettes concerning some early geographers, geologists, ethnologists, cartographers, and others, many of whom were associated with the great surveys of the trans-Mississippi. The whole is admirably illustrated with some 60 map reproductions and other illustrations. References, a select bibliography, and index are of much utility. All collections."

Choice

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: REPRESENTING THE NEW STATE
1. ’The Seeking Out and Discovery of Courses, Havens, Countries, and Places’
2. Representing the New Netherlands
3. Imperial Claims
4. Representing the New State
PART II: REPRESENTING THE REPUBLIC
5. A New Mode of Thinking
6. The Father of American Geography
7. A Sensible Foreigner
8. Mapmaking in Philadelphia
PART III: REPRESENTING THE NATION
9. Inscribing the National Landscape
10. Constructing the National Community
12. Locating the National Economy
13. A Postcolonial Postscript
References
Select Bibliography
Index

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