Nature's State

Imagining Alaska as the Last Frontier

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Science, Biological Sciences, Evolution, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology
Cover of the book Nature's State by Susan Kollin, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Susan Kollin ISBN: 9781469648095
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: June 15, 2018
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Susan Kollin
ISBN: 9781469648095
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: June 15, 2018
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

An engaging blend of environmental theory and literary studies, Nature's State looks behind the myth of Alaska as America's "last frontier," a pristine and wild place on the fringes of our geographical imagination. Susan Kollin traces how this seemingly marginal space in American culture has in fact functioned to alleviate larger social anxieties about nature, ethnicity, and national identity.

Kollin pays special attention to the ways in which concerns for the environment not only shaped understandings of Alaska, but also aided U.S. nation-building projects in the Far North from the late nineteenth century to the present era. Beginning in 1867, the year the United States purchased Alaska, a variety of literary and cultural texts helped position the region as a crucial staging ground for territorial struggles between native peoples, Russians, Canadians, and Americans. In showing how Alaska has functioned as a contested geography in the nation's spatial imagination, Kollin addresses writings by a wide range of figures, including early naturalists John Muir and Robert Marshall, contemporary nature writers Margaret Murie, John McPhee, and Barry Lopez, adventure writers Jack London and Jon Krakauer, and native authors Nora Dauenhauer, Robert Davis, and Mary TallMountain.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

An engaging blend of environmental theory and literary studies, Nature's State looks behind the myth of Alaska as America's "last frontier," a pristine and wild place on the fringes of our geographical imagination. Susan Kollin traces how this seemingly marginal space in American culture has in fact functioned to alleviate larger social anxieties about nature, ethnicity, and national identity.

Kollin pays special attention to the ways in which concerns for the environment not only shaped understandings of Alaska, but also aided U.S. nation-building projects in the Far North from the late nineteenth century to the present era. Beginning in 1867, the year the United States purchased Alaska, a variety of literary and cultural texts helped position the region as a crucial staging ground for territorial struggles between native peoples, Russians, Canadians, and Americans. In showing how Alaska has functioned as a contested geography in the nation's spatial imagination, Kollin addresses writings by a wide range of figures, including early naturalists John Muir and Robert Marshall, contemporary nature writers Margaret Murie, John McPhee, and Barry Lopez, adventure writers Jack London and Jon Krakauer, and native authors Nora Dauenhauer, Robert Davis, and Mary TallMountain.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book The Logic of Compromise in Mexico by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Battle Hymns by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book The Party at Jack's by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book The Kennedy Crises by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Disunion! by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Behind the Backlash by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Long, Obstinate, and Bloody by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Yale Law School and the Sixties by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book The Transformation of American Abolitionism by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Gay on God's Campus by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Washington Brotherhood by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Women at War in the Borderlands of the Early American Northeast by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book Journal of the Civil War Era by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book The Trials of Laura Fair by Susan Kollin
Cover of the book In the Trenches at Petersburg by Susan Kollin
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy