Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T02:36:44.255Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Planetary Power? The United States and the History of Around-the-World Travel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2013

JOYCE E. CHAPLIN
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is a given that the United States has been an important global power, yet it may be of at least equal significance that the nation has been an only faltering planetary power. Global is social – it implies the social relations that extend over the globe. In contrast, planetary is physical, indicating the physical planet itself. Far more historical studies have focussed on the former than on the latter; examining the history of the United States within planetary terms is only beginning to be done. One long tradition of human engagement with the whole Earth is the practice of circumnavigation, going around the world. This essay examines American circumnavigators’ accounts ecocritically, in terms of their consciousness of the natural world, in order to explain that the United States came to the tradition of going around the world belatedly and not always beneficially.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Journal of the United States in Congress Assembled … (New York, [1787]), XII, 145.

2 For claims that premodern humans focussed on small environments (islands, gardens, regions) rather than planetary ones, and that they had short-term senses of historical time: Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, trans. Siân Reynolds, 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, 2005), 1, 17–23Google Scholar; Pratt, Mary Louise, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grove, Richard H., Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Orgins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Lewis, Martin W. and Wigen, Kären E., The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Lewis, Martin W., “Dividing the Ocean Sea,” Geographical Review, 89 (1999), 188–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Drayton, Richard, Nature's Government: Science, Imperial Britain, and the “Improvement” of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Warde, Paul, “The Invention of Sustainability,” Modern Intellectual History, 8 (2011), 153–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On space travel and the whole Earth: Mack, Pamela, Viewing the Earth: The Social Construction of the Landsat Satellite System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Cosgrove, Denis, “Contested Global Visions: One-World, Whole-Earth, and the Apollo Space Photographs,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 84 (1994), 270–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cosgrove, Apollo's Eye: A Cartographic Genealogy of the Earth in the Western Imagination (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 257–67Google Scholar; Maher, Neil, “Shooting the Moon,” Environmental History, 9 (2004), 526–31Google Scholar; Poole, Robert, Earthrise: How Man First Saw the Earth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

3 On whether the social networks intrinsic to globalism can be traced very far back into time see Mazlish, Bruce and Buultjens, Ralph, eds., Conceptualizing Global History (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Cox, Robert W., “A Perspective on Globalization,” in Mittelman, James H., ed., Globalization: Critical Reflections (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996), 20–22Google Scholar; Mazlish, Bruce, “Comparing Global History to World History,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 28 (1998), 385–95Google Scholar; Rothschild, Emma, “Globalization and the Return of History,” Foreign Policy, 115 (1999), 106–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hopkins, A. G., “The History of Globalization – and the Globalization of History?” in Hopkins, ed., Globalization in World History (London: Pimlico, 2002), 11–46Google Scholar; Armitage, David, “Is There a Pre-history of Globalization?”, in Cohen, Deborah and O'Connor, Maura, eds., Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-national Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2004), 165–76Google Scholar; Lang, Michael, “Globalization and Its History,” Journal of Modern History, 78 (2006), 899–931CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 On the rereading of sources to discover human-to-non-human connections see Fromm, Harold and Glotfelty, Cheryll, eds., The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Buell, Lawrence, The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

5 Pigafetta, Antonio, Magellan's Voyage: A Narrative Account of the First Circumnavigation, trans. and ed. R. A. Skelton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 148Google Scholar; Bartky, Ian R., One Time Fits All: The Campaigns for Global Uniformity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Bartky, 14–25.

7 Bartky, 26; “Crossing Aviation's Almost Forgotten Frontier,” Flying Magazine, 78 (June 1966), 101–3; Pan Am polar route brochure, Oct. 1977, Box 1, Folder 23, Accession I, Pan Am Records, University of Miami; Ivor Davis, “Around the World in 48 Hours,” Aircraft, Dec. 1977, ibid., Box 307, Folder 12.

8 Pigafetta, First Circumnavigation, 30–31; “Ambassadors’ Globe,” Nuremberg, c.1533, Beinecke Library, Yale; but see Burleigh, Richard, “Note on Radiocarbon of the Ambassadors’ Globe,” Imago Mundi, 33 (1981), 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Battista Agnese, portolan atlas, Venice, c.1642, John Carter Brown Library; Adams, Thomas R. and Black, Jeannette D., “Oval World Map by Battista Agnese,” in Portfolio Honoring Harold Hugo (Meriden, CT: Meriden-Stinehour, 1978)Google Scholar, [1–3]; Wallis, Helen, “The First English Globe: A Recent Discovery,” Geographical Journal, 117 (1951), 277–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wallis, Helen, The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Mapped in Silver and Gold (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 15–17Google Scholar; Dekker, Elly and van der Krogt, Peter, Globes from the Western World (London: Zwemmer, 1993), 92–93Google Scholar, 95, 109, 111; pocket globe, British Library, Maps Division, C4.a.3.(5).

10 There are multiple examples of pocket globes that feature Cook's death. See British Library, Maps Division, C.4.a.5.(1); C.4.a5.2; C.4.a5.8; C.4.a4 (4); C.4.a4 (6); C.4.a4 (10); C.4.a4 (13), C4.a4 (4).

11 Globe as emblem: Mairin Mitchell, Elcano: The First Circumnavigator (London: Herder Publications, 1958), 100, 102; Kelsey, Harry, Sir Francis Drake: The Queen's Pirate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 222–24Google Scholar; Whitney, Geoffrey, A Choice of Emblemes (Leiden, 1586), 203; Mollema, De Reis om de Wereld van Olivier van Noort, 1598–1601 (Amsterdam: Van Kampen, 1937)Google Scholar, Plate 3; Wagner, Anthony R., Historic Heraldry of Britain : An Illustrated Series of British Historical Arms (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 87Google Scholar. Portraits with globes: Sir Francis Drake, engraving attributed to Jodocus Hondius, completed by George Vertue, c.1583, National Portrait Gallery (NPG), London, 3905; Sir Francis Drake, unknown artist, oil on panel, c.1580, NPG 4032; Sir Francis Drake, after unknown artist, line engraving, late 16th–early 17th century, NPG, D2283; Nichols, Philip, Sir Francis Drake Revived … (London, 1626)Google Scholar, title page; Thomas Cavendish, engraving by Jodocus Hondius, in Franciscus Dracus redivivus (Amsterdam, 1596); Thomas Cavendish, engraving by Robert Boissard, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Rawl. 170, fol. 121. Pantheon: World map showing track of Schouten's voyage in 1615–17 ([Amsterdam?, 1618?]); Purchas, Samuel, Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and Others [1625], 20 vols. (Glasgow: J. MacLehose and Sons, 1905–7), 1Google Scholar, frontis.; 2, 84–284.

12 Walter, Richard and Robins, Benjamin, A Voyage round the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV, by George Anson, ed. Glyndwr Williams (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), xv–xviGoogle Scholar; Williams, Glyndwr, ed., Documents Relating to Anson's Voyage round the World, 1740–1744 (London: Navy Records Society, 1967), 236–37Google Scholar.

13 Chaplin, Joyce E., “Earthsickness: Circumnavigation and the Terrrestrial Human Body, 1520–1800,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 86 (2012), 515–42CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

14 The Journal of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse, 1785–1788, 2 vols., trans. and ed. John Dunmore (London: Hakluyt Society, 1994), 1, xx, xxi, c, civ–cv, cxi, cxvii, cxxiv, cxlviii, cxlix, 24–25, 92; 2, 246, 369, 431, 432, 486, 519, 525, 536–40; Dening, Greg, Mr Bligh's Bad Language : Passion, Power, and Theatre on the Bounty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar. See also Dunmore, John, French Explorers in the Pacific: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 250–82Google Scholar.

15 Walter and Robins, xxi–xxv; Washington Collection, Boston Athenaeum, Wa.84.; Benjamin Franklin “to All Captains and Commanders” [10 March 1779], The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Barbara B. Oberg, Volume XXIX (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 86–87.

16 Ivashintsov, N. A., Russian Round-the-World Voyages, 1803–1849 (Kingston, Ontario: Limestone Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Vinkovetsky, Ilya, “Circumnavigation, Empire, Modernity, Race: The Impact of Round-the-World Voyages on Russia's Imperial Consciousness,” Ab Imperio, 1–2 (2001), 191–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Pennsylvania Mercury and Universal Advertiser, 19 Aug. 1790; Howay, Fredric W., ed., Voyages of the “Columbia” to the Northwest Coast, 1787–1790 and 1790–1793 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1941), 37–38Google Scholar, 51–52, 122, 124; Fichter, James R., So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 48–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Warriner, Francis, Cruise of the United States Frigate Potomac Round the World (New York, 1835), 11–12Google Scholar, 75–85, 126, 299, 311.

19 Isaac Howe, “An Abstract of a Cruise in the U. S. Frigate Constellation in the Years of 1840, 41, 42, 43 & 44,” Huntington Library, 37, 70, 85, 132.

20 Gurney, Alan, The Race to the White Continent (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000)Google Scholar; Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia), 7 Dec. 1839; Wilkes, Charles, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, 5 vols. (Philadelphia, 1849), iGoogle Scholar, xxv–xxvi, xxvii–xxix, 137; 2, 319–20; Goetzmann, William H., Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1966), 233–36Google Scholar; Philbrick, Nathaniel, Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842 (New York: Viking, 2003)Google Scholar, esp. 237, 282, 291; Viola, Herman J., “The Story of the U.S. Exploring Expedition,” in Viola, Herman J. and Margolis, Carolyn, eds., Magnificent Voyagers: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985), 9–23Google Scholar.

21 Wilkes, 3, 265; Viola, 20, 21; E. Jeffrey Stann, “Charles Wilkes as Diplomat,” in Viola and Margolis, 205–25.

22 Douglas E. Evelyn, “The National Gallery at the Patent Office,” in Viola and Margolis, 227–54.

23 Jules Sebastien-Cesar Dumont D'Urville, Voyage au pole sud et dans l'Océanie … Histoire du voyage, 10 vols. (Paris, 1841–46), 1, 38, 138; 2, 336; 4, 193; 8, 13–14, 123–25, 129–31, 137, 150; 10, 179–80.

24 Wimmel, Kenneth, Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet: American Sea Power Comes of Age (Washington: Brassey's, 1998)Google Scholar; Reckner, James R., Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet (Annapolis, 1988), xiGoogle Scholar; Miller, Roman John, Around the World with the Battleships, intro. by James B. Connolly (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1909), 128, 361Google Scholar.

25 Atlantic cable: Dibner, Bern, The Atlantic Cable (Norwalk, CT: Burndy Library, 1959)Google Scholar; Briggs, Charles F. and Maverick, Augustus, The Story of the Telegraph and a History of the Great Atlantic Cable (New York, 1858), 12Google Scholar; The Atlantic Telegraph Report of the Proceedings at a Banquet given to Mr. Cyrus W. Field …(New York, 1866); McClenachan, C. T., Detailed Report of Proceedings Had in Commemoration of the Successful Laying of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable (New York, 1859), 50Google Scholar. Full global telegraph circuit: Murray, Donald, “How Cables Unite the World,” World's Work, 4 (1902), 2298–99Google Scholar; Telephony, 61 (1911), 484. Panama Canal: McCullough, David, The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977)Google Scholar.

26 Nellie Bly's Book: Around the World in 72 Days (New York, 1890); Marks, Jason, Around the World in 72 Days: The Race between Pulitzer's Nellie Bly and Cosmopolitan's Elizabeth Bisland (New York: Gemittarius Press, 1993)Google Scholar; “She's Broken Every Record!” New York World, 26 Jan. 1890.

27 Twain, Mark, Following the Equator: A Journey around the World (Hartford, 1897), 75Google Scholar.

28 Thomas, Lowell, The First World Flight: Being the Personal Narratives of Lowell Smith, Erik Nelson, Leigh Wade, Leslie Arnold, Henry Ogden, John Harding (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925)Google Scholar; Glines, Carroll V., Around the World in 175 Days: The First Round-the-World Flight (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

29 Mears, John Henry, Racing the Moon (and Winning): Being the Story of the Swiftest Journey Ever Made, a Circumnavigation of the Globe by Airplane and Steamship in 23 Days, 15 Hours, 21 Minutes and 3 Seconds by Two Men and a Dog (New York: Rae D. Henkle Co., 1928)Google Scholar; Post, Wiley and Gatty, Harold, Around the World in Eight Days: The Flight of the Winnie Mae, intro. by Will Rogers (New York: Rand, McNally & Company, 1932)Google Scholar; Sampson, Anthony, Empires of the Sky: The Politics, Contests, and Cartels of World Airlines (New York: Random House, 1985), 36Google Scholar, 37, 44–47, 50–53, 82; Bender, Marylin and Altschul, Selig, Chosen Instrument: Pan Am, Juan Trippe, the Rise and Fall of an American Entrepreneur (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 256–57Google Scholar, 423–24; Gandt, Robert, Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am (New York: Morrow, 1995); Ten Thousand Times around the World (n.p., 1945), p. 2Google Scholar, Box 623, Folder 78, Acc. I, Pan Am Recs.; “Around the World Today and Yesterday,” press release, c.1945, ibid., Box 204, Folder 20.

30 V. Belyaov et al., eds., “Yuriy Gagarin's Star Voyages: Documents …,” Izvestiya TsK KPSS (Political Archives of the Soviet Union), 5 (1991), 110–11, 112, 115 (translation by Gregory Afinogenov); Titov, Gherman and Caidin, Martin, I am Eagle! Based on Interviews with Wilfred Burchett and Anthony Purdy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), 171Google Scholar; Asif Siddiqi, A., Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974 (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2000), 455Google Scholar.

31 See references to the “Whole Earth” photographs in note 2, above.