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Creating the American West
Boundaries—lines imposed on the landscape—shape our lives, dictating everything from which candidates we vote for to what schools our children attend to the communities with which we identify. In Creating the American West, historian Derek R. Everett examines the function of these internal lines in American history generally and in the West in particular. Drawing lines to create states in the trans-Mississippi West, he points out, imposed a specific form of political organization that made the West truly American.
Everett examines how settlers lobbied for boundaries and how politicians imposed them. He examines the origins of boundary-making in the United States from the colonial era through the Louisiana Purchase. Case studies then explore the ethnic, sectional, political, and economic angles of boundaries. Everett first examines the boundaries between Arkansas and its neighboring Native cultures, and the pseudo war between Missouri and Iowa. He then traces the lines splitting the Oregon Country and the states of California and Nevada, and considers the ethnic and political consequences of the boundary between New Mexico and Colorado. He explains the evolution of the line splitting the Dakotas, and concludes with a discussion of ways in which state boundaries can contribute toward new interpretations of borderlands history.
A major theme in the history of state boundaries is the question of whether to use geometric or geographic lines—in other words, lines corresponding to parallels and meridians or those fashioned by natural features. With the distribution of western land, Everett shows, geography gave way to geometry and transformed the West. The end of boundary-making in the late nineteenth century is not the end of the story, however. These lines continue to complicate a host of issues including water rights, taxes, political representation, and immigration. Creating the American West shows how the past continues to shape the present.
Everett examines how settlers lobbied for boundaries and how politicians imposed them. He examines the origins of boundary-making in the United States from the colonial era through the Louisiana Purchase. Case studies then explore the ethnic, sectional, political, and economic angles of boundaries. Everett first examines the boundaries between Arkansas and its neighboring Native cultures, and the pseudo war between Missouri and Iowa. He then traces the lines splitting the Oregon Country and the states of California and Nevada, and considers the ethnic and political consequences of the boundary between New Mexico and Colorado. He explains the evolution of the line splitting the Dakotas, and concludes with a discussion of ways in which state boundaries can contribute toward new interpretations of borderlands history.
A major theme in the history of state boundaries is the question of whether to use geometric or geographic lines—in other words, lines corresponding to parallels and meridians or those fashioned by natural features. With the distribution of western land, Everett shows, geography gave way to geometry and transformed the West. The end of boundary-making in the late nineteenth century is not the end of the story, however. These lines continue to complicate a host of issues including water rights, taxes, political representation, and immigration. Creating the American West shows how the past continues to shape the present.
- GenresWesterns
319 pages, ebook
First published May 14, 2014
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February 24, 2015A good book for geography nerds.
December 15, 2019
The invisible lines that unite us and divide us are sources of fascination for generations of geographers, historians, and political science philosophers. Everett gives us a series of vignettes on the boundaries that created America's borderlands, in particular between the territories that became states in the U.S. West. I learned a good deal about how the places I have became what they are today.
My only quibble is that in making a clearly academic study more accessible to the popular reader, the author gets bogged down in repetition. Where one example would do, he gives three. The detail supports his thesis yet bogs down the narrative.
My only quibble is that in making a clearly academic study more accessible to the popular reader, the author gets bogged down in repetition. Where one example would do, he gives three. The detail supports his thesis yet bogs down the narrative.
April 28, 2022
My review is largely for chapter 7- I’d say this retelling is white-washed, but that’d be mild. The author makes the mistake of many historians and only repeats the Anglo story line. There are many better works on this chapter of history (I recommend Gomez’s Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race- you’ll note she analyzed similar historical documents and draws strikingly different conclusions).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews