New PDF release: Mapping and Empire: Soldier-Engineers on the Southwestern

From the 16th during the mid-nineteenth centuries, Spain, then Mexico, and at last the USA took possession of the land from the Gulf Coast of Texas and Mexico to the Pacific Coast of Alta and Baja California—today's American Southwest. each one state confronted the problem of maintaining directly to territory that was once poorly recognized and in moderation settled, and every spoke back through sending out army mapping expeditions to set barriers and chart topographical good points. All 3 international locations well-known that turning terra incognita into essentially delineated political devices was once a key step in empire development, as very important to their nationwide curiosity because the actions of the missionaries, civilian officers, settlers, and adventurers who within the footsteps of the soldier-engineers.

With essays by means of 8 prime historians, this publication deals the most up-tp-date and accomplished evaluate of the approaches in which Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. soldier-engineers mapped the southwestern frontier, in addition to the neighborhood or even geopolitical effects in their mapping. 3 essays concentrate on Spanish efforts to map the Gulf and Pacific Coasts, to chart the inland Southwest, and to outline and protect its limitations opposed to English, French, Russian, and American incursions. next essays examine the position that mapping performed either in Mexico's makes an attempt to take care of regulate of its northern territory and within the usa' push to extend its political boundary to the Pacific Ocean. The concluding essay attracts connections among mapping within the Southwest and the geopolitical historical past of the Americas and Europe.