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Paths to Possession

Name: Paths to Possession
Brand: INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
SKU: 9780253077424
Price: 118.0 AUD
Availability: InStock

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESSISBN: 9780253077424

Transportation Infrastructure and American Expansion

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$118.00

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By James R. Stocker
Imprint: INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Release Date: May 31, 2027
Format: PAPERBACK
Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm
Weight:
Pages: 416

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Paths to Possession explores the history of America's western expansion through the lens of transportation infrastructure from the beginning of European settlement in North America through the Early American Republic era. In this wide-ranging survey of emerging transportation systems based on roads, water, and rail, author James R. Stocker demonstrates how they transformed spaces already inhabited by Indigenous communities into American territory. These routes shaped travel and trade, facilitating the expansion of colonial power, the projection of military force, and the acquisition of wealth through land speculation and economic development. Transportation corridors benefited European settlers, but Indigenous communities also leveraged their control over these routes to co-opt and resist the settlers' advancement. Featuring seventeen original maps, Paths to Possession provides a new interpretation of the rise of American power grounded in material factors and sheds new light on the history of western expansion and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

James R. Stocker is Associate Professor of Global Affairs at Trinity Washington University. He is author of Spheres of Intervention: US Foreign Policy and the Collapse of Lebanon (1967-1976).

Acknowledgments Note on Maps 1. Ways of Moving: Infrastructure for Empire Part I: Colonial Pathways 2. Muddy Paths and Streams: The English Colonies and Transportation to the 1670s 3. From Warriors' Paths to Wagon Roads: Transportation in the 1670s-1740s Part II: Wars and Upheaval 4. "Yet I Shall Go More Surely": Roads and the French and Indian War, 1754-1766 5. Revolutionary Expansion: Transportation and the Frontier in the American War of Independence Part III: New Pathways 6. Visions of Expansion: The Internal Improvements Debate and Native American Dispossession 7. Indian Removal and Transportation in the Old Northwest 8. Indian Removal and Transportation in the Old Southwest Epilogue and Conclusions: "You Are as Much Worthy of Pity as We Are" Abbreviations in Notes Notes Bibliography Index

"Other transportation histories admirably account for technological innovations, economic ambitions, political advantages; Stocker's special contribution is the direct linkage of military conflict with transportation initiatives that illuminates the aggressive intentionality propelling the story forward through the centuries."-John Lauritz Larson, author of Laid Waste: The Culture of Exploitation in Early America

Paths to Possession

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