INVENTING DESTINY

From the University Press of Kansas. The mythmakers of US expansion have expressed “manifest destiny” in many different ways—and so have its many discontents. A multidisciplinary study that delves into these contrasts and contradictions, Inventing Destiny offers a broad yet penetrating cultural history of nineteenth-century US territorial acquisition—a history that gives voice to the underrepresented actors who significantly complicated US narratives of empire, from Native Americans and Anglo-American women to anti- and non-national expansionists. The contributors—established and emerging scholars from history, American studies, literary studies, art history, and religious studies—make use of source materials and techniques as various as artwork, religion, geospatial analysis, interior colonialism, and storytelling alongside fresh readings of traditional historical texts. For more information see the Inventing Destiny  page

---

CURRENTLY

Jeff made me do it. I forget precisely how the conversation started, but some time ago, my Lamar History Department colleague Jeff Forret mentioned an idea for an anthology on the scoundrels of Southern capitalism. I immediately thought of my third-great grandfather William G. Cheeney, and I related his history of burglary, credit-dodging, and dubious claims of developing a Civil War submarine. The story may have been interesting, but when Jeff suggested that I might contribute to the collection, I balked. I did not think I had enough data on Cheeney to make a meaningful contribution to scholarship that lies outside within my field of study. Jeff insisted, and so I relented.  (see more)

---

ELSEWHERES

Taking a look at Frances Flora Palmer's Across the Continent (1868) featured on the cover of our anthology Inventiny Destiny. Click here.