American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization

A true gold mine of knowledge for both history and geography, American Empire is based on about twentyfive years of solid original research. It is not a simple biography of Isaiah Bowman, the most famous American geographer of the twentieth century and a fascinatingly anomalous personality, but a well constructed and beautifully written investigation on how the power of geographical ideas affected the U.S. foreign and commercial policies, with strong implications for the understanding of globalization and contemporary geopolitics. Neil Smith elucidates a "missing link" fundamental for the comprehension of contemporary history: the hidden thread that connects American geopolitics from the Paris Peace Treaties of 1919 to that of World War II, up to the creation of the U.N. and the beginnings of the Cold War. The understanding of this continuity is possible thanks to the accurate and in-depth analysis of the key role played by Bowman as advisor for the Department of State and the White House, under both the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson and FDR. In doing so, the author is able also to re-establish the key role of geographical visions in shaping the soon-to-be American hyperpower, throughout the Twentieth "American" Century. Unfortunately, historical perspective and understanding of geographic knowledge seems often to be quite limited in the present world, as most people tend to lose memory of the past or represent it in simplied terms, and generally consider geography little more than something related to "map quizzes". For these reasons, this extraordinary work not only represents an undisputable masterpiece in historical and geographical research that fills a gap in contemporary history, but it is also a necessary reading for anyone interested in how our not-so-distant past and geographic visions could still underpin the currently troubled world scenario. An amazing work that is bound to last.