The Shaping of America Volume 2: Continental America, 1800–1867 by D.W. Meinig (review) (1994)

The Shaping ofAmerica Volume 2: Continental America, 1800-1867 D.W. Meinig New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993 xix + 636 pp. maps and illustrations Reviewed by Jam es W . S co tt Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225 AA^HILE.HISTORIANS from George Bancroft and Francis Parkman to Allan Nevins, Samuel Eliot Morison, and Daniel Boorstin have written large, multi-volume works on major periods and themes, geographers with few exceptions have been content to produce single­ volume works on regions or themes equally large. In the past 2 decades, however, a number of historical geographers have under­ taken to write multi-volume works that cover regions as large and complex in their make-up as the periods covered by the historians. They include Norman J.G. Pounds with his three-volume work His­ torical Geography of Europe, O.H.K. Spate with his three-volume work The Pacific Since Magellan, and most recently D.W. Meinig, whose Continental America, 1800-1867 is the second in a projected four-volume work, The Shaping o f America: A Geographical Per­ spective on 500 Years of History. Continental in its scope, magisterial in its organization and pre­ sentation, and brilliant in its insights and interpretations, this volume, like its forerunner Atlantic America, 1492-1800, seems destined to 168 SCOTT: Review of The Shaping ofAmerica, Volume 2 169 become one of the twentieth century’s major works of geographical scholarship. A large volume of over 600 pages, it covers in varying detail the major events, external as well as internal, that propelled the United States in its expansion westward from Atlantic to Pacific, across a wide swath of land that extended from the Mexican border to the Canadian border during the first two-thirds of the 19th century. The volume is arranged in four sections of differing lengths. Part One, “Extension: The Creation of a Continental Empire,” occupies a little over one-third of the pages. In these, Meinig deals with a num­ ber of major themes: the acquisition in 1803 of the Louisiana Territory from France, which effectively doubled the area of the young repub­ lic and which brought with it not only vast new lands and natural resources, but also massive political, economic, and scientific chal­ lenges; the later acquisitions of Florida, Texas, and California; the settlement of the northern border with Great Britain;.and the geopo­ litical and social problems posed by the seizure of Indian lands and the need to deal effectively with the native people living there. Part Two, “Expansion: The Growth of a Continental Nation,” encompasses almost as many pages. In compelling fashion,-. Meinig outlines and develops the economic, social, and political geography of Manifest Destiny and the Westward Movement. The contributions of New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, and the Southern states to this continental expansion, and the contributions of different ethnic groups, including those of African Americans, are detailed and care­ fully assessed. Two very effective chapters cover the many transportation changes brought about during the period and the piv­ otal roles played by rivers and canals, railroads and roads in different regions of the country. Other chapters in this section deal with the evolution of cities and urban systems and the growth of industries, while a final chapter considers the shape of the United States in the 1850s. At the time these enormous and often phenomenal changes were taking shape, others more menacing were brewing. These are the fo­ cus of Part Three, “Tension: The Sundering of a Federation.” In 100 170 APCG YEARBOOK • VOLUME 56 • 1994 pages, Meinig skillfully examines and dissects the geopolitical forces that led up to the Civil War and shattered the still-far-from-fullysettled -and-developed nation. This is followed by a rather brief Part Four, “Context: The United States in North America circa 1867,” which not only provides an overall summation of the work but, in effect, sets the scene for the two volumes yet to come. In these, the emergence of a fully transcontinental and transoceanic America will be detailed. Finally, invaluable for general reader and scholar alike are the list of sources of the many quotations included in the volume, the 30 pages of bibliography...