"The purpose of this book is to tell in outline the story of European geographical exploration, trade and settlement outside the bounds of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; to define the factors which stimulated expansion and made it possible; and to describe briefly the consequences which followed it."--Preface

On 29 July 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which became operational on 1 October of that year. Over the next 50 years, NASA achieved a set of spectacular feats, ranging from advancing the well-established field of aeronautics to pioneering the new fields of Earth and space science and human spaceflight. In the midst of the geopolitical context of the Cold War, 12 Americans walked on the Moon, arriving in peace “for all mankind.” Humans saw their home planet from a new perspective, with unforgettable Apollo images of Earthrise and the “Blue Marble,” as well as the “pale blue dot” from the edge of the solar system. A flotilla of spacecraft has studied Earth, while other spacecraft have probed the depths of the solar system and the universe beyond. In the 1980s, the evolution of aeronautics gave us the first winged human spacecraft, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station stands as a symbol of human cooperation in space as well as a possible way station to the stars. With the Apollo fire and two Space Shuttle accidents, NASA has also seen the depths of tragedy. In this volume, a wide array of scholars turn a critical eye toward NASA’s first 50 years, probing an institution widely seen as the premier agency for exploration in the world, carrying on a long tradition of exploration by the United States and the human species in general. Fifty years after its founding, NASA finds itself at a crossroads that historical perspectives can only help to illuminate.

Was the relationship between English settlers and Native Americans in the New World destined to turn tragic? This book investigates how the newcomers interacted with Algonquian groups in the Chesapeake Bay area and New England, describing the role that original Americans occupied in England's empire during the critical first century of contact. Michael Leroy Oberg considers the history of Anglo-Indian relations in transatlantic context while viewing the frontier as a zone where neither party had the upper hand. He tells how the English pursued three sets of policies in America—securing profit for their sponsors, making lands safe from both European and native enemies, and "civilizing" the Indians—and explains why the British settlers found it impossible to achieve all of these goals. Oberg places the history of Anglo-Indian relations in the early Chesapeake and New England in a broad transatlantic context while drawing parallels with subsequent efforts by England as well as its imperial rivals—the French, Dutch, and Spanish—to plant colonies in America. Dominion and Civility promises to broaden our understanding of the exchange between Europeans and Indians and makes an important contribution to the emerging history of the English Atlantic world.

The story of how the map of New Zealand emerged is a fascinating one. The first full map of the islands was published in London in 1773, which might seem the natural starting point, but over the preceding 150 years, fragments of charts and intelligence about New Zealand ricocheted around various parts of the world. In A Draught of the South Land, Paul Moon provides the first comprehensive account of this piecemeal process. Moon’s investigation covers several continents over more than a century, and reveals the personalities, blunders, strategic miscalculations, scientific brilliance, and imperial power-plays that were involved. Above all, he examines the roles played by explorers and traders, Māori and European rulers, scientific societies and military groups, as well as specialist cartographers and publishers. At a time when maps as colonial tools, enablers of trade and objects of curiosity are being studied anew, his careful analysis and engaging narrative will be of interest to scholars everywhere.