Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The advent of photography opened new worlds to 19th-century viewers, who became able to visualize themselves, their immediate surroundings, their communities, and the world beyond. The geographical imagination--the ability to know the world and situate oneself in space and time--fostered the expectations and applications of photographic technologies, and photographic technologies expresses the form and reach of the geographical imagination. This dialectic is the basis of this collection of intriguing essays, which explore the diverse ways in which the relationship manifested.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Part I Producing Place
• La Mission Heacute;liographique: Architectural Photography, Collective Memory, and the Patrimony of France 1851--
• Retracing the Outlines of Rome: Intertextuality and Imaginative Geographies in 19th-Century Photographs--
• Visualizing Eternity: Photographic Constructions of the Grand Canyon--
• Family as Place: Family Photograph Albums and the Domestication of Public and Private Space--
• Part II Framing the Nation
• Picturing Nations: Landscape Photography and National Identity in Britain and Germany in the Mid-19th Century--
• Capturing and Losing the "Lie of the Land": Railway Photography and Colonial Nationalism in Early-20th-Century South Africa--
• Constructing the State, Managing the Corporation, Transforming the Individual: Photography, Imagination, and the Canadian National Railways, 1925-1930--
• Part III Colonial Encounters
• Emperors of the Gaze: Photographic Practices and Productions of Space in Egypt, 1839-1914--
• Mapping a Sacred Geography: Photographic Surveys by the Royal Engineers in the Hold Land, 1864-1868--
• Home and Empire: Photographs of British Families in theLucknow Album, 1856-1857--
• Negotiating Spaces: Some Photographic Ideas in the Western Pacific, 1883-1884--
• Epilogue: Wunderkammer to World Wide Web: Picturing Place in the Post-Photographic Era--

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In the 1850s, photography was a revolutionary way to observe and record, as prominent photographer David Harvey said, the "geographical imagination," the sense of place, time, and landscape that lent meaning to social and cultural existence. The 12 scholarly essays and accompanying photographs are reflections about the 19th century as the formative period in photography. There are three topical areas. Part 1, "Picturing Place," discusses photography from reality to two-dimensional depiction. In 1851, photography was used in France to document historical monuments and cathedrals for architectural preservation. Part 2, "Framing the Nation," shows how photography contributed to creating national identities by providing new visual images to the people. Nations like Germany, Britain, Canada, and South Africa were framed by photographs. The Grand Canyon went from obscurity to become identified with the US as a prime tourist destination. Part 3, "Colonial Encounters," describes photography's impact on colonial-imperial relations. Photographs documented the realities of colonialism in Egypt, the Middle East, India, and the western Pacific islands. An epilogue discusses the rise of digital photography and how the image manipulation plays on our sense of reality. Unique in scope, this book is especially recommended for scholarly collections. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels. W. A. McIntyre New Hampshire Community Technical College at Nashua

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Joan Schwartz is Senior Photography Specialist at the National Archives of Canada.

James Ryan is Lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Geography, Queen's University, Belfast.