LIBRI DI MARCO SIOLI

Dieci studiosi americani e italiani, prendendo spunto dalla dichiarazione di guerra degli Stati Uniti alla Gran Bretagna del 1812, si interrogano sul ruolo che ebbero gli War Hawks nell’influenzare la dichiarazione di guerra, sul ruolo della stampa che già appare come quarto potere, sugli scenari geopolitici e gli interessi espansionistici della giovane repubblica, mostrando come in una guerra, che viene ricordata con difficoltà e solo come scontro per la difesa degli interessi marittimi, si presentavano già in nuce espressioni intense di patriottismo e spinta espansionistica.

This essay gives an environmental and cultural perspective on the history of Lexington, Kentucky, at the turn of eighteenth-century. The name of the city recalls not only the starting point of the War for Independence in Massachusetts, but it represents the spirit itself of the American Revolution, symbolizing the American farmers’ devotion to liberty and the integrity of rural life. By exploring the ecological and cultural changes of the city, this work describes the shift from Indian to White control of the early American frontier. Indian violence was exaggerated: just one colonist was killed by the Indians near the town. On the counterpoint, the Indians were forced to leave their land and the «embattled farmers» created in Kentucky also the institutions that formed the core of the American republic.

This number follows the collection of essays under the same title - Cities and Wilderness on the American Frontiers - published in «Storia urbana», 87 (1999). The first issue analyzed the origins of the word «wilderness» and the many meanings this word assumed during the age in America: from the colonization - with the destruction of the wilderness and the creation of the cities - to the cultural and practical reevaluation of the wilderness and its reappearance into American metropolis. The cities treated in the first number were Shamokin, San Antonio, Cooperstown, Dodge City and Santa Fe. The following essays - written by a balanced group of American and Italian scholars - go deep in this study adding new topics that get lost in the first number, such as: agricultural capitalism, industrialization and deindustrialization, race, environment, politics, and ecology. These arguments are applied to the following cities: Lexington, Concord, Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Knoxville, New York, and Washington. Reading all together both these numbers will allow the reader to rethink the many aspects beyond the basic concepts of the American way of life. The relation among city, wilderness and frontier appears as a cultural path not linear but circular. The destroyed wilderness comes back in the city as well as the frontier takes a revenge on colonization and the land, abandoned by the settlers, reacquires its original state.