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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Historical geography
How the West Was Drawn explores the geographic and historical
experiences of the Pawnees, the Iowas, and the Lakotas during the
European and American contest for imperial control of the Great
Plains during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. David
Bernstein argues that the American West was a collaborative
construction between Native peoples and Euro-American empires that
developed cartographic processes and culturally specific maps,
which in turn reflected encounter and conflict between settler
states and indigenous peoples. Bernstein explores the cartographic
creation of the Trans-Mississippi West through an interdisciplinary
methodology in geography and history. He shows how the Pawnees and
the Iowas-wedged between powerful Osages, Sioux, the horse- and
captive-rich Comanche Empire, French fur traders, Spanish
merchants, and American Indian agents and explorers-devised
strategies of survivance and diplomacy to retain autonomy during
this era. The Pawnees and the Iowas developed a strategy of
cartographic resistance to predations by both Euro-American
imperial powers and strong indigenous empires, navigating the
volatile and rapidly changing world of the Great Plains by
brokering their spatial and territorial knowledge either to
stronger indigenous nations or to much weaker and conquerable
American and European powers. How the West Was Drawn is a
revisionist and interdisciplinary understanding of the global
imperial contest for North America's Great Plains that illuminates
in fine detail the strategies of survival of the Pawnees, the
Iowas, and the Lakotas amid accommodation to predatory
Euro-American and Native empires.
How do regions form and evolve? What are the human and geographical
factors which help to unify a region, and what are the political
considerations which limit integration and curtail co-operation
between a region's communities? Through a diverse series of case
studies focusing on the regional history of Lesbos and the Troad
from the seventh century BC down to the first century AD, The
Kingdom of Priam offers a detailed exploration of questions about
regional integration in the ancient world. Drawing on a wide range
of evidence - from the geography of Strabo and the botany of
Theophrastos, to the accounts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
travellers and the epigraphy, numismatics, and archaeology of the
region - these case studies analyse the politics of processes of
regional integration in the Troad and examine the insular identity
of Lesbos, the extent to which the island was integrated into the
mainland, and the consequences of this relationship for its
internal dynamic. Throughout it is argued that although Lesbos and
the Troad became ever more economically well-integrated over the
course of this period, they nevertheless remained politically
fragmented and were only capable of unified action at moments of
severe crisis. These regional dynamics intersected in complex and
often unexpected ways with the various imperial systems (Persian,
Athenian, Macedonian, Attalid, Roman) which ruled over the region
and shaped its internal dynamics, both through direct interventions
in regional politics and through the pressures and incentives which
these imperial systems created for local communities.
Updated and revised to include theoretical and other developments,
bibliographical additions, new photographs and illustrations, and
expanded name and subject indexes, the fourth edition of All
Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas is the most
complete and comprehensive book of its kind. The text also features
a layout and readability that make the material easy to navigate
and understand.
The book investigates the ways in which the subject of geography
has been recognized, perceived, and evaluated, from its early
acknowledgment in ancient Greece to its disciplined form in today's
world of shared ideas and mass communication. Strong continuities
knit the Classical Period to the Age of Exploration, then carry
students on through Varenius to Humboldt and Ritter--revealing the
emergence of "the new geography" of the Modern Period.
The history of American geography--developed in seven of the twenty
chapters--is strongly emphasized pursuant to the formal origins of
geography in late nineteenth-century Germany, Darwin's theory of
evolution, and the Great Surveys of the American West. This
treatment is enhanced by chapters concerning parallel histories of
geography in Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia (including the
USSR and CIS), Canada, Sweden, and Japan-countries that at first
contributed to and later borrowed from the body of US geographical
thought.
All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas, Fourth
Edition, is ideal for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses
in the history and philosophy of classical, medieval, and modern
geographical thought.
Almost everyone who has visited Nantucket can recite its "official
history." But very few know the real reasons why things turned out
as they did. Why the British first came to Nantucket and why the
Indians let them in. Why Nantucket eclipsed all other ports in
whaling wealth and why its fortunes ultimately fell. How the tiny
hamlet of 'Sconset saved Nantucket from becoming a near ghost town.
The true mission of a "top secret" Navy Base at Tom Nevers, the
attempted Federal takeover of the whole island in 1972, and three
unrelated events that triggered Nantucket's recent real estate
feeding frenzy.
In "Tom Never's Ghost" you'll gain a fresh new understanding of
the Island's history, both past and present, and learn much that
has never been reported before, all in a lively historical
narrative format that goes well beyond a straight history to
"connect all the dots." At 288 pages, the book is illustrated with
32 historical maps and photos.
In many respects early Pennsylvania was the prototype of North
American development. Its conservative defense of liberal
individualism, its population of mixed national and religious
origins, its dispersed farms, county seats, and farm-service
villages, and its mixed crop and livestock agriculture served as
models for much of the rural Middle West. To many western Europeans
in the eighteenth century, life in early Pennsylvania offered a
veritable paradise and refuge from oppression. Some called it "the
best poor man's country in the world."
The role of cultural backgrounds is important in this study of
the development of early southeastern Pennsylvania, and as
important is the interplay of people with the land. Lemon discusses
the settlement of the land by western Europeans; the geographical
and social mobility of the people; territorial organizations of
farmlands, towns, and counties; and regional variations in land
use, especially farming practices. Providing deeper access into the
processes of social change, "The Best Poor Man's Country" remains a
significant addition to the literature on colonial American
historiography.
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