Research Catalog

Informed power : communication in the early American South

Title
Informed power : communication in the early American South / Alejandra Dubcovsky.
Author
Dubcovsky, Alejandra, 1983-
Publication
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016.

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TextUse in library JFE 16-13072Schwarzman Building - Milstein Division Room 121

Details

Description
287 pages : illustrations, maps; 25 cm
Summary
Informed Power maps the intricate, intersecting channels of information exchange in the early American South, exploring how people in the colonial world came into possession of vital knowledge in a region that lacked a regular mail system of a printing press until the 1730s. Challenging the notion of early colonial America as an uninformed backwater, Alejandra Dubcovsky uncovers the ingenious ways its inhabitants acquired timely news through largely oral networks. Information circulated through the region via spies, scouts, traders, missionaries, and other ad hoc couriers - and by encounters of sheer chance with hunting parties, ship-wrecked sailors, captured soldiers, or fugitive slaves. For many, content was often inseparable from the paths taken and the alliances involved in acquiring it. The different and innovative ways that Indians, Africans, and Europeans struggled to make sense of their world created communication networks that linked together peoples who otherwise shared no consensus of the physical and political boundaries shaping their lives. Exchanging information was not simply about having the most up-to-date news or the quickest messenger. It was a way of establishing and maintaining relationships, of articulating values and enforcing priorities - a process inextricably tied to the region's social and geopolitical realities. At the heart of Dubcovsky's study are important lessons about the nexus of information and power in the early American South. -- from dust jacket.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-273) and index.
Contents
What: Making sense of La Florida, 1560s-1670s -- Paths and power -- Information contests -- Rebellious news -- Who: The many faces of information, 1660s-1710s -- Informers and slaves -- The information race -- How: New ways of articulating power, 1710-1740 -- Networks in wartime -- Dissonant connections.
Call Number
JFE 16-13072
ISBN
  • 9780674660182 (hbk.)
  • 0674660188 (hbk.)
LCCN
  • 2015031060
  • 40025856753
OCLC
919068240
Author
Dubcovsky, Alejandra, 1983- author.
Title
Informed power : communication in the early American South / Alejandra Dubcovsky.
Publisher
Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2016.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-273) and index.
Local Note
AUTH: YALE UNIVERSITY. STUDIES WAYS IN WHICH INFORMATION WAS SHARED IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH.
Other Standard Identifier
40025856753
Research Call Number
JFE 16-13072
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