Climate and the Picturesque in the American Tropics (Hardcover)

The biggest challenge of the twenty-first century is to bring the effects of public life into relation with the intractable problem of global atmospheric change. Climate and the Picturesque in the American Tropics explains how we came to think of the climate as something abstract and remote rather than a force that actively shapes our existence. The book argues that this separation between climate and sensibility predates the rise of modern climatology and has deep roots in the era of colonial expansion, when the American tropics were transformed into the economic supplier for Euro-American empires. The book shows how the writings of American travellers in the Caribbean registered and pushed forward this new understanding of the climate in a pivotal period in modern history, roughly between 1770 and 1860, which was fraught with debates over slavery, environmental destruction, and colonialism. Offering novel readings of authors including J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Leonora Sansay, William Cullen Bryant, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and James McCune Smith in light of their engagements with the American tropics, this book shows that these authors drew on a climatic epistemology that fused science and sentiment in ways that citizen science is aspiring to do today. By suggesting a new genealogy of modern climate thinking, Climate and the Picturesque in the American Tropics thus highlights the urgency of revisiting received ideas of tropicality deeply ingrained in American culture that continue to inform current debates on climate debt and justice.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Oxford Studies in American Literary History
Release date:	November 2022
Authors:	Michael Boyden (Professor of English)
Dimensions:	241 x 162 x 10mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	224
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-286830-5
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 19th century Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Pollution & threats to the environment > Global warming Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Social impact of environmental issues > General Promotions
LSN:	0-19-286830-6
Barcode:	9780192868305

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