The nation's nature : how continental presumptions gave rise to the United States of America
"In The Nation's 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."--Publisher description
Print Book, English, 2011
University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2011
History
xii, 402 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
9780813931227, 9780813931395, 0813931223, 0813931398
694283187
Introduction : the historical role of an imagined place
Scientific trends, continental conceptions, revolutionary implications
The geopolitical continent, 1713-1763
Continental crisis, 1763-1774
Nationalism's nature : Congress's continental aspect
Nationalism's nurture : war, peace, and the continental character of the United States, 1775-1783
Ordering lands and peoples : scientific and imperial contexts of the late eighteenth century
Seizing nature's advantages : the Constitution and the continent, 1783-1789
Epilogue : the continent from on high
"Winner of the Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for an outstanding work of scholarship in eighteenth-century studies."