The Nation's Nature: How Continental Presumptions Gave Rise to the United States of America by James D. Drake ( University of Virginia Press)

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Founding era was the willingness of so many Americans to believe that their shaky young republic was somehow destined to dominate North America. James Drake explains why people with only the haziest ideas of the continent's geography could have found this proposition plausible, and shows how, in acting on their convictions, they positioned the United States to realize a vision that was far more improbable than they dreamed. This elegantly argued, graceful, and rewarding book invites us not only to reimagine the American Revolutionary impulse, but to reassess the nature of the nation it created.In The Nation’s Nature, James Drake untangles the critical and complex process by which free Americans imagined the United States stretching from sea to sea long before it actually did. He makes a convincing case that this continental vision was critical to the Americans’ success at breaking up the British Empire in 1776 and launching their own eleven years later. Along the way, he proves that it is possible to trace the evolution of a nation’s collective imagination in jargon-free prose that is actually fun to read.Geographers have begun to ask whether continents are any longer a viable category of analysis, while the new field of global history has challenged the idea that the story of this nation can be contained between the seas. In this moment of geographic turbulence, we are suddenly liberated from the tyranny of continental presumptions and encouraged to reimagine ourselves in a less landlocked manner. Drake's book comes as a gift at this critical time."