Nationalism's Nature: Continental Conceptions and the Emergence of the United States

FAIN: FB-53067-07

James David Drake
Metropolitan State College of Denver (Denver, CO 80217-3362)

NATIONALISM'S NATURE is a history of how views of the continental division of the earth evolved in the Anglo-American colonies and became intertwined with an emerging and uniquely American national identity. The book will braid intellectual, political, and social history together within a comparative context. It will demonstrate how Anglo-American participation in scientific debates and imperial contests helped create modern geographical conceptions and an embryonic national identity. Then, using the counterexamples of India, Mexico, and the West Indies, the book will argue that these developments could have occurred as they did only within the unique social and political context of the Anglo-American mainland colonies.

Associated Products

The Nation's Nature: How Continental Presumptions Gave Rise to the United States of America (Book)
Title: The Nation's Nature: How Continental Presumptions Gave Rise to the United States of America
Author: James D. Drake
Abstract: 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 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.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/nations-nature-how-continental-presumptions-gave-rise-to-the-united-states-of-america/oclc/694283187&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: Worldcat
Secondary URL: http://books.upress.virginia.edu/detail%2Fbooks%2Fgroup-4202.xml?q=drake
Secondary URL Description: University of Virginia Press Website
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780813931227

Prizes

Walker Cowen Memorial Prize
Date: 2/15/2009
Organization: University of Virginia Press
Abstract: The prize is awarded to the author of a scholarly book-length manuscript in eighteenth-century studies, including the Americas and the Atlantic world. Submissions may be in history (including history of science), literature, philosophy, or the arts. The competition is held annually. The winner of the Cowen Prize will receive a $5,000 award and will be offered an advance publishing contract by the University of Virginia Press. The prize honors the late Walker Cowen, second Director of the Press from 1969 until his death in 1987.

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