"A vital contribution to nineteenth-century studies of Britain, America, and the emerging field of the 'trans-Atlantic.' This book will set the standard for future analyses of the social, cultural, and political processes by which the world got 'mapped for use' in the modern imperial age."-James Buzard, author of The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to "Culture," 1800-1918

"An impressive assembly of new and known hands has produced a valuable critical atlas to the age of the world picture, key maps for exploring the modern Anglo-American culture of location."-James Chandler, author of England in 1819

The nineteenth century was a time of unprecedented discovery and exploration throughout the globe, a period when the "blank spaces" of the earth were systematically investigated, occupied, and exploited by the major imperial powers of Western Europe and the United States. The lived experience of space was also changing in dramatic ways as a result of new developments in technology, communication, and transportation. As a result, the century was characterized by a new and intense interest in place, both local and global.

The collection is composed of seventeen essays from various disciplines organized into four areas of geographic concern. The first, "Time Zones," examines several ways that place gets expressed as time during the period, how geography becomes history. A second grouping, "Commodities and Exchanges," explores the role of geographic origin as it was embodied in particular objects, from the souvenir map to imported tea. The set of essays on "Domestic Fronts" moves the discussion from the public to the private sphere by looking at domestic space as defined by its boundary with the foreign. The final section, "Orientations," takes up the changing relations of bodies, identities, and the spaces they inhabit and through which they moved. The collection as a whole also traces the development of the discipline of geography with its different institutional and political trajectories in the United States and Great Britain.

Helena Michie is a professor of English and women's studies at Rice University. She is the author of several books, including The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures, Women's Bodies and is the coauthor of Confinements: Fertility and Infertility in Contemporary Culture (Rutgers University Press). Ronald R. Thomas is a professor of English at Trinity College (Connecticut). He has written several books on Victorian culture, including Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science.