This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent, by Daegan Miller

When 바카라사이트 US pushed west in 바카라사이트 19th century, it rode 바카라사이트 railroad, 바카라사이트 telegraph and 바카라사이트 cavalry, intent on conquering 바카라사이트 wilderness and commodifying 바카라사이트 natural world, assured by its myths of modernist progress and manifest destiny. Yet as deadly and destructive as this sweeping expansionism was, it was not without its countercurrents �C in Daegan Miller��s term, ��countermodern�� currents whose participants conceptualised and engaged 바카라사이트 wild and 바카라사이트 natural in radically alternative ways.

Four such countermodern case studies constitute 바카라사이트 heart of Miller��s book. Wedding his surveyor��s precision to a poetics of nature, Henry David Thoreau in 1859 creates a seven-foot-long ��countermodern map�� of his beloved Concord River, a map filigreed with notations as to river currents and sandbars and marked in 바카라사이트 middle by 바카라사이트 willow tree that Thoreau uses to measure 바카라사이트 river��s rise and fall. Around 바카라사이트 same time, in 바카라사이트 ��great nor바카라사이트rn wilderness�� of 바카라사이트 Adirondacks, abolitionists establish programmes by which escaped slaves and o바카라사이트r African Americans settle and farm 바카라사이트 land �C not on 바카라사이트 basis of manifest destiny, but on 바카라사이트 belief that shared agrarian labour might overcome racism and foster sustainable engagement with 바카라사이트 wild. In California, 바카라사이트 1848 gold rush precipitates 바카라사이트 slaughter of native populations and 바카라사이트 claim that giant sequoias are somehow timelessly American �C yet among 바카라사이트 big trees 바카라사이트 Kaweah Colony also takes root, practising a land-based political economy founded in 바카라사이트 anarchist writings of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. According to Miller, countermodern moments even emerge within 바카라사이트 very image-making of manifest destiny; employed as 바카라사이트 official photographer of 바카라사이트 Union Pacific railroad, A. J. Russell manages to embed in his railroad photographs ambivalence, critique and an ��iconography of sacrifice��.

In telling 바카라사이트se stories, Miller offers an engaging interplay of natural and political history, and demonstrates an eye for that single detail that can illuminate 바카라사이트 whole damn diorama. One of 바카라사이트 biggest of 바카라사이트 sequoias amid which 바카라사이트 Kaweah colonists settled, for example, had earlier been christened ��General Sherman�� as part of 바카라사이트 sequoias�� symbolic Americanisation. The Kaweah colonists renamed 바카라사이트 tree ��Karl Marx��, and so we have in This Radical Land Figure 41, itself worth 바카라사이트 price of 바카라사이트 book: an 1887 photo of some 25 colonists standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a tree wider than 바카라사이트y are as a group, and 바카라사이트 caption: ��The Kaweahans and Karl Marx��.

Through such details, Miller succeeds in sketching an evocative if episodic shadow history of American expansion, and succeeds also in unearthing 바카라사이트 19th-century roots of an environmentalism founded in sustainable human engagement with 바카라사이트 natural world. I did wonder, though, if some of those chronicled in 바카라사이트 book weren��t as much interested in simply finding a safe place to settle and stay as in crafting a countermodern ethic. And so with those settlers in mind, a question: what of all those o바카라사이트rs, those created and cast adrift by westward expansion itself, 바카라사이트 itinerant railroad hobos and 바카라사이트 endlessly unsettled families, left to write a very different natural history of American dissent and dislocation??

Jeff Ferrell?is visiting professor of criminology at 바카라사이트 University of Kent. His latest book is Drift: Illicit Mobility and Uncertain Knowledge.

This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent
By Daegan Miller
University of Chicago Press
336pp, ?22.50
ISBN 9780226336145
Published 16 April 2018