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
development. And just twenty years after its fonnál independence, it was, at a single stroke [the Louisiana Purchasel , doubled in area. During the next fifty years an even greater expanse of territory was added [primarily the Mexican Cession at the end of the Mexican War] so that by midcentury the United States was more than three times its original size. The creation of the outer framework of the Republic is a geographical topic worthy of close analysis and speculative reflection. However "natural" and matter-of-fact this broad, compact, almost symmetrical transcontinental belt of territory must seem after all these years, no one ever envisioned exactly that extent and shape for the nation during this era of expansion; no far-sighted statesman ever sketched that geographical design on the map as the objective of national policy. We are concerned with the various geographical designs that were put forth during each episode and stage of that history, with what the territorial issues were, what alternatives were considered, and why the United States did come to have the particular outline it eventually obtained. We are also concerned not simply with the setting of exact boundaries but with the creation of broad borderlands. While a sequence of gigantic extensions shifted the western limits of the United States from the Great River to the crest of the Great Mountains to the shores of the Great Ocean, we will be dealing not simply with the Westward Movement, so famous in our national history and mythology, but more accurately, with a powerful Outward Movement that ramified deeply into every neighboring society. And while we will not, in this part, focus closely on the actual expansion of the "American" people, we will pay attention to those other peoples who got caught in the path of that expansion through these successive extensions of American jurisdiction. Having established the outer bounds of the United States, we will then be ready to look more closely at the
