The 11 essays in this volume, originally presented at meetings of the Ulster-American Heritage Symposium by scholars from Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, explore the nature of Scotch-Irish culture by examining values, traditions, demographics, and language. The essays also investigate the process of migration, which transmitted that culture to the New World, and the subsequent assimilation of Celtic ways into American culture.
The themes presented are wide-ranging and complex. First is the dynamic nature of Ulster society in the 17th and 18th centuries and the rapid changes occurring there, especially those affecting Presbyterianism and community cohesiveness. Also examined is the experience of migration, asking such questions as who migrated and when, what their expectations were, and how closely colonial reality matched those expectations. A third theme is the development of economic strategies and community-building both in Ulster and North America, making important contributions to the "new rural history" and explaining the success of the Scotch-Irish on the American frontier. Finally, the volume addresses ethnic identity and cultural diffusion, advancing the ongoing debate initiated by Forrest McDonald and Grady McWhiney and elaborated on by David Hackett Fischer. Ulster and North America illustrates the value of transatlantic dialog and of comparative studies for the understanding of ethnicity and migration history.
Understanding NAFTA was first published in 1993 as Continental Shift: Free Trade & the New North America. This edition includes a new introduction that brings the NAFTA story up through 1995.
Urban Rivers examines urban interventions on rivers through politics, economics, sanitation systems, technology, and societies; how rivers affected urbanization spatially, in infrastructure, territorial disputes, and in floodplains, and via their changing ecologies. Providing case studies from Vienna to Manitoba, the chapters assemble geographers and historians in a comparative survey of how cities and rivers interacted from the seventeenth century to the present.
Rising cities and industries were great agents of social and ecological changes, particularly during the nineteenth century, when mass populations and their effluents were introduced to river environments. Accumulated pollution and disease mandated the transfer of wastes away from population centers. In many cases, potable water for cities now had to be drawn from distant sites. These developments required significant infrastructural improvements, creating social conflicts over land jurisdiction and affecting the lives and livelihood of nonurban populations. The effective reach of cities extended and urban space was remade. By the mid-twentieth century, new technologies and specialists emerged to combat the effects of industrialization. Gradually, the health of urban rivers improved.
From protoindustrial fisheries, mills, and transportation networks, through industrial hydroelectric plants and sewage systems, to postindustrial reclamation and recreational use, Urban Rivers documents how Western societies dealt with the needs of mass populations while maintaining the viability of their natural resources. The lessons drawn from this study will be particularly relevant to today's emerging urban economies situated along rivers and waterways.
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