Eastward of Good Hope: Early America in a Dangerous World

News from the East, such as ship logs and mariners' reports, shaped early Americans' understanding of the world as a map of dangerous and incoherent sites. This was a world that was profoundly disordered, hobbled by tyranny and oppression, or steeped in chaos and anarchy, but amenable to American influence. Dane A. Morrison's book "Eastward of Good Hope" reconsiders American ideas about the world by examining the early years of the republic, when its national character was particularly pliable and its foundational posture in the world was forming.

Format: Hardback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2021
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

How did news from the East—carried in ship logs and mariners reports,journals,and correspondence—shape early Americans understanding of the world as a map of dangerous and incoherent sites?

Winner of the John Lyman Book Award by the North American Society for Oceanic History, Yankee merchants embarked on numerous voyages of commerce and discovery into distant seas. Through the news from the East, carried in mariners' reports, ship logs, journals, and correspondence, Americans at home imagined the world as a map of dangerous and deranged places. This was a world that was profoundly disordered, hobbled by tyranny and oppression or steeped in chaos and anarchy, often deadly, always uncertain, unpredictable, and unstable, yet amenable to American influence.

Focusing on four representative arenas—the Ottoman Empire, China, India, and the Great South Sea (collectively, the East Indies, Oceana, and the American continent's Northwest coast)— Eastward of Good Hope recasts the relationship between America and the world by examining the early years of the republic, when its national character was particularly pliable and its foundational posture in the world was forming.

Drawing on recent scholarship in global ethnohistory, Dane A. Morrison recounts how reports of cannibal encounters, shipboard massacres, shipwrecks, tropical fever, and other tragedies in distant seas led Americans to imagine each region as a distinct set of threats to their republic. He also demonstrates how the concept of justification through self-doubt allowed for aggressive expansionism and for the foundations of imperialism to develop.

Morrison reconsiders American ideas about the world through three questions: How did the East shape early Americans' perceptions of the world? How did the East influence American ideas about the nature of empire and imperialism? How did the East shape American ideas about the relationship between the nation and the world?

Eastward of Good Hope is a groundbreaking work that offers a fresh perspective on the early years of the American republic and the complex relationship between America and the world. It is essential reading for anyone interested in American history, global history, and the origins of imperialism.

Weight: 680g
Dimension: 236 x 162 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781421442365