In the early sixteenth century, as voyages across the Atlantic became more feasible and consequently more frequent, international competition for possession of the New World intensified. Occupied by numerous Indian tribes, western North America was home to vast natural resources, alleged riches and a fabled waterway that would connect the Mississippi with the Pacific Ocean. Over the next two centuries, Spanish, French, British, Russian and American explorers flocked to the Trans-Mississippi West, competing with each other as well as the native Indian groups for possession of the western half of the continent. Beginning with the 1528 shipwreck of Spanish conquistador Cabeza de Vaca and ending with the negotiation of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, this volume presents a broadly based general survey of the events which took place in the Trans-Mississippi West during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The book focuses on the international rivalries west of the Mississippi and the resulting intense military and commercial competition. Using a unique prismatic rather than chronological approach, the work examines six distinct groups--Native American Indians, Spanish, French, British, Russians and Americans--and the objectives of each with regard to the Trans-Mississippi West. Sources include contemporary journals of explorers such as Lewis and Clark. An epilogue evaluates the success of the respective quests while a brief chronology at the end of the text serves to orient the reader. Appendices address eight related topics including the Lewis and Clark expedition, firearms on the early frontier, and the coming of the horse.

DIVRoderick Nash’s classic study of changing attitudes toward wilderness during American history, as well as the origins of the environmental and conservation movements, has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. The Los Angeles Times listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine included it in a survey of “books that changed our world,” and it has been called the “Book of Genesis for environmentalists.” For the fifth edition, Nash has written a new preface and epilogue that brings Wilderness and the American Mind into dialogue with contemporary debates about wilderness. Char Miller’s foreword provides a twenty-first-century perspective on how the environmental movement has changed, including the ways in which contemporary scholars are reimagining the dynamic relationship between the natural world and the built environment./div

Maps on lining papers. A narrative account of the eighteenthcentury struggle of England and France in the Iroquois territory for dominance.

Dean Kuipers takes us behind the scenes of the Animal Liberation Front and its punk-anarchist sibling the Earth Liberation Front, two of the most notorious and violent environmental groups and one of the FBI's biggest domestic terrorist priorities--even in the wake of 9/11. Kuipers tells us the story of ALF and ELF through Rod Coronado, an eco-terrorist and animal rights activist who has served jail time on several convictions in connection with his radical activities. From his teenage association with the Sea Shepherd and Earth First! through the federal manhunt that transformed him into a folk hero, Coronado's story parallels a movement that has led to over 1,200 acts of sabotage, $1 billion in damages, and a legal showdown that will define America's relationship to environmentalism. Neither a biography nor a polemic about animal rights, Operation Bite Back tells the outlaw tale of a man who acted on well-defined principles to carry out a campaign of political sabotage, putting his life on the line for an environmental movement that ultimately couldn't afford to be identified with his extreme actions.

This collected volume of original essays proposes to address the state of scholarship on the political, cultural, and intellectual history of Americans responses to wilderness from first contact to the present. While not bringing a synthetic narrative to wilderness, the volume will gather competing interpretations of wilderness in historical context.

In A Wilderness so Immense, historian Jon Kukla recounts the fascinating tale of the personal maneuverings, political posturing, and international intrigue that culminated in the greatest land deal in history. Spanning nearly two decades, Kukla’s book brings to life a pageant of characters from Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Jay, to Napoleon and Carlos III of Spain and other colorful figures. Employing letters, memoirs, contemporary documents, and a host of other sources, Kukla creates a complete and compelling account of the Louisiana Purchase. From the hinterlands in Kentucky to the courts of Spain, France, and England to the halls of Congress, he re-creates the forces and personalities that turned a struggle for navigation rights on the Mississippi into an event that doubled the size of the country and altered the destiny of the United States forever.

National parks like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Glacier preserve some of this country's most cherished wilderness landscapes. While visions of pristine, uninhabited nature led to the creation of these parks, they also inspired policies of Indian removal. By contrasting the native histories of these places with the links between Indian policy developments and preservationist efforts, this work examines the complex origins of the national parks and the troubling consequences of the American wilderness ideal. The first study to place national park history within the context of the early reservation era, it details the ways that national parks developed into one of the most important arenas of contention between native peoples and non-Indians in the twentieth century.