Highlights In American History: To 1850 Book Pdf

This book shows how these changes triggered the formation of mixed imagined communities as well as of local and regional markets that gradually became part of a global economy. But it also highlights how these forces produced a multifaceted landscape full of contrasts and recognizes the plurality of the actors involved in cultural transfers, in which trade, persuasion and violence were entwined. The result is a model of the rise of consumerism that is very different from the ones normally used to understand the European cases, as well as a more nuanced vision of the effects of ecological imperialism, which was, moreover, the base for the development of unsustainable capitalism still present today in Latin America.

In the United States, similar studies were taking place. Inspired in part by Chadwick, local sanitary surveys were conducted in several cities. The most famous of these was a survey conducted by Lemuel Shattuck, a Massachusetts bookseller and statistician. His Report of the Massachusetts Sanitary Commission was published in 1850. Shattuck collected vital statistics on the Massachusetts population, documenting differences in morbidity and mortality rates in different localities. He attributed these differences to urbanization, specifically the foulness of the air created by decay of waste in areas of dense population, and to immoral life-style. He showed that the poor living conditions in the city threatened the entire community. "Even those persons who attempted to maintain clean and decent homes were foiled in their efforts to resist diseases if the behavior of others invited the visitation of epidemics." (Rosenkrantz, 1972)

Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970, the book from which this foreword is excerpted, is the first comprehensive study of the lives and artistic production of artists of Asian ancestry active in the United States before 1970. The publication features original essays by ten leading scholars, biographies of more than 150 artists, and over 400 reproductions of artwork, ephemera, and images of the artists. Aside from a few artists such as Dong Kingman, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Isamu Noguchi, and Yun Gee, artists of Asian ancestry have received inadequate historical attention, even though many of them received wide critical acclaim during their productive years. This pioneering work recovers the extraordinarily impressive artistic production of numerous Asian Americans, and offers richly informed interpretations of a long-neglected art history. To unravel the complexity of Asian American art expression and its vital place in American art, the texts consider aesthetics, the social structures of art production and criticism, and national and international historical contexts. Without a doubt, Asian American Art will profoundly influence our understanding of the history of art in America and the Asian American experience for years to come. Chang, Gordon H., Mark Johnson, and Paul Karlstrom, eds. Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008. Reprinted with the permission of Stanford University Press. 2b1af7f3a8