Niagara Falls was a lightning rod for nineteenth-century enthusiasms. Although travelers came to the falls to experience a place they considered outside the world of their ordinary lives, they brought with them their contemporary concerns. Many tourists were obsessed with the mysteries of death, others with scientific or religious speculation. The way they imagined Niagara Falls found expression in a torrent of writings and images that took a variety of forms. Patrick McGreevy begins with the question, What can these ...
Read More
Niagara Falls was a lightning rod for nineteenth-century enthusiasms. Although travelers came to the falls to experience a place they considered outside the world of their ordinary lives, they brought with them their contemporary concerns. Many tourists were obsessed with the mysteries of death, others with scientific or religious speculation. The way they imagined Niagara Falls found expression in a torrent of writings and images that took a variety of forms. Patrick McGreevy begins with the question, What can these visions of Niagara tell us about the place itself? The landscape surrounding the falls contains not only parks and religious shrines but also circuses, horror museums, and factories. People travel to Niagara not only to experience nature but also to celebrate marriages or commit suicide. One way to make sense of these bizarre "human accumulations," as H. G. Wells called them, is to take seriously the Niagaras people have imagined. This book focuses on four interlocking themes that recur time and again in descriptions of the falls: Niagara as a thing imagined from afar, as a metaphor for death, as an embodiment of nature, and as a focus of future events. Using the skills of a cultural geographer, McGreevy discovers some surprising connections between the Niagara people have imagined and the one they made, between its natural grandeur and its industrial exploitation, between Frederick Law Olmsted's Reservation and the Love Canal.
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine in Fine dust jacket. 0870239163. Clean and pristine, with no markings or signs of use. Fast shipping, with tracking number provided.; 9.3 X 5.9 X 1.0 inches; 208 pages.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good. Size: 6x0x9; Thank you for supporting Earthlight Books and independent bookstores. Hard cover with DJ under mylar. Very good condition. Minor shelf wear to boards and DJ. Clean, tight binding.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine in fine dust jacket. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 193 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. 1st printing of 1st edition. Fine hardcover in Fine DJ. Bright, clean, square covers and spine are As New; tightly bound; bright, crisp, clean interior. DJ is bright, clean and complete. 8vo, 193 pp; index. This is a new, unread book.
