Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)

BOOK REVIEWS - Davis D. Joyce: D. W. Meinig: The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History. Volume 2: Continental America, 1800—1867. Yale University Press, 1993. 636 pp

lectivity of the United States as a national society is attested by the chronic plight of American Blacks." Many readers will probably feel that Meinig does not contribute as many new insights in part three, "Tension." Still, it is interesting that from his historical/geographical perspective, slavery is still central in understanding America's mid-19th century crisis; so, not surprisingly, is geography, though neither "caused" the war, he insists. "The Civil War remains the great watershed in American history," he writes. "We tend to be so traumatized by that awesome bloodletting that the insistent question is always: Why did the Union fail? But a broader perspective on such geopolitical matters might first pose the question: How could it have held together for so long under such dynamic circumstances? For the rapidity and scale of expansion of the American federation during the first half of the nineteenth century were, and remain, unprecedented in world political history." Thus the United States had become "a great paradox: a growing, prospering, ever-expanding federation was a turbulent, weakening, and foundering federation." Finally, Meinig explains 1867 as his cut-off point for this volume by reference to the Reconstruction Act of 1867 (and, in a totally different context, the purchase of Alaska), and concludes: "To trace the reintegration of the South into the federation and the nation it will be better to enlarge our perspective so as to bring the whole of transcontinental America into the picture

—as we shall do in Volume III." It may be true, as Meinig insists, that his focus is "more on places than on persons." But if the traditional layperson's division of geography into human and physical has any validity, certainly Meinig's is human. His work is not environmental history, he says; perhaps not, but it is related, and helpful for understanding the complex interrelationships between humans and their natural (and humanly constructed) environment, and it is not surprising that noted environmental historian William Cronon is among those who have praised Meinig's work. Perhaps historical geographers were somewhat marginalized within their field during the quantitative revolution of the 1960s that affected so many disciplines, but perhaps it can also be argued, as one historical geographer (M. Dear) has done, that by definition 179