Description
Book SynopsisJohn C. Frémont was the most celebrated explorer of his era. After Congress published Frémont's official report of his 1842 expedition, few doubted the nation should expand to the Pacific. The first in-depth study of this remarkable report, Sight Unseen argues that Frémont used both a radical form of art and an imaginary map to create an aesthetic desire for expansion.
Trade Review"Anyone interested in how Americans transformed western lands from obstacles into symbols of national achievement will find much of value in Menard's work."—Jared Orsi,
Kansas History“[A] sharp and canny synthesis. . . . Most impressive in
Sight Unseen is the meticulous way Menard makes his case that [Frémont’s] imaginative transformation was a textual one.”—Robert Thacker,
Western American Literature "Through the imaginative eyes of Frémont, Menard makes significant strides in linking the words of the explorer and naturalist to the cultural concept that would shape the future land use and settlement of the American West."—Camden Burd,
Historical Geography"Crisply written, deliciously illustrated."—Ryan Boyd,
Great Plains Quarterly"
Sight Unseen is a rigorously researched, exceptionally astute, and well-reasoned interdisciplinary study of a report that defined America's emerging ideology of progress. It is a splendid contribution to the historiography of both Frémont and nineteenth-Century America."Fred MacVaugh,
Nebraska History"[
Sight Unseen is] a well-written work revealing an essential part of the history of the North American continent."—G.J. Martin,
Choice“Sight Unseen is a book for anyone who loves maps, landscape, and historical intricacy. . . . Anchored by the image of the explorer waving his nation’s flag from a mountain peak, Menard’s account of Frémont’s expedition enlivens the rhetoric of a triumphal national narrative. Like the explorer’s Report, Sight Unseen melds scientific, symbolic, and aesthetic views of a nation that knew no bounds.”—Lucy R. Lippard, author of Down Country, winner of the Caroline Bancroft History Prize
“Eloquent, lively, and learned, with an intellectual breadth as wide as a Rocky Mountains horizon, Andrew Menard’s
Sight Unseen ably reconnoiters geographies of both imagination and terra firma. This fascinating book recovers the American West as John Frémont found it and shows us how the explorer taught us to see American landscapes—and America itself—anew.”—Tom Chaffin, author of
Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American EmpireTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Introduction: The Golden Meane
Part 1. Picturesque America
The Great Desert
The Hudson Valley
Eastern Kansas
Courthouse Rock
Yellowstone
All the Different Parts of Our Country
Part 2. Westward the Course of Empire
The Mouth of the Oregon
Westward the Course of Empire
The Loftiest Peak of the Rocky Mountains
The Barometric Reading
The National Flag
Bromus, the Humble Bee
The Four Cardinal Rivers
To the Pacific and Beyond
Afterword: The Eye That Has Not Seen
Notes
Index
