Liquid Landscape by Michele Currie Navakas

Liquid Landscape by Michele Currie Navakas

In Liquid Landscape, Michele Currie Navakas analyzes the history of Florida's incorporation alongside the development of new ideas of personhood, possession, and political identity within American letters, from early American novels, travel accounts, and geography textbooks, to settlers' guides, maps, natural histories, and land surveys.

"Liquid Landscape is a masterful study of adaptability that will appeal to scholars of literature, cartography, the environment, and early American history, regardless of regionIndeed, Navakas's approaches and conclusions extend well beyond Florida. Through sharp literary analysis, depth, and breadth, Navakas elucidates how diverse populations thrived in places where others struggled to survive . . . Just as Navakas succeeds in integrating Florida-a region so distinct that it is often overlooked in historical and cultural accounts of early America-back into the national narrative, so too did American officials succeed in incorporating Florida into the nation" (Environmental History) "Navakas's excellent study . . . simultaneously recuperates Florida's singular status in America's founding stories and points out the fallacy of figuring Florida as exceptional. This ability to hold up Florida as exemplary while rejecting the idea that it is anomalous or otherwise unextrapolatable is perhaps Navakas's most remarkable achievement in this text.." (Eighteenth Century Fiction) "Liquid Landscape is an outstanding interdisciplinary study of Florida's historical geographies that raises the bar for scholars in a variety of fields of both history and literature . . . a rich and sophisticated historical study of the relationships between colonialism and geographical ambiguity in early America. Anyone interested in the interstitial places where land and water meet will find this book fascinating." (Journal of American History) "In Liquid Landscape, Michele Currie Navakas demonstrates with brilliant originality how the topographical distinctiveness of Florida's 'unstable ground' generated counter-conceptions of roots and boundaries, historical exceptionality, ideals of possession and property, and much else during the formation of national identity over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A remarkable, fascinating achievement." (John Matthews, Boston University) "The insightful and compelling readings in Liquid Landscape make an important intervention in the field of early American studies, one that changes the map of early nationalism in significant ways." (Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Northeastern University) "Liquid Landscape is an imaginative and intelligent work, offering significant new contributions to geographies in American studies. Michele Currie Navakas ranges to excellent effect among a variety of genres and media, and her historical purview from the late colonial era through Reconstruction is similarly impressive and useful." (Jennifer Greeson, University of Virginia)

Michele Currie Navakas teaches literature at Miami University of Ohio.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780812249569
ISBN 10	0812249569
Title	Liquid Landscape
Author	Michele Currie Navakas
Series	Early American Studies
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	University of Pennsylvania Press
Year published	2017-09-28
Number of pages	248
Prizes	Winner of Winner of the 2019 Stetson Kennedy Award from the Florida Historical Society. Winner of Winner of the 2019 Rembert Patrick Award from the Florida Historical Society.
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.