Photo: Elisha Kent KaneThe ebb and flow of American Arctic anxietyThough the U.S. has had a robust national conversation about the shifting state of the Arctic in recent years, analysis of the nation’s relationship with the region often lacks a sense of the longer American cultural and intellectual history of the Arctic. This broader context helps to understand the acute policy-making process within a longer cultural and intellectual history of the U.S. and the Arctic. Students of American history are most familiar with tales of filibusters, rogue U.S. citizens independently laying claim to territory in Central America and the Caribbean. Instead, the crania of indigenous Arctic peoples – gathered and dispatched by various Arctic exploring expeditions – led him to craft the hybrid category of Mongolian-Americans. Kane’s Arctic stageSuch was the image of the American Arctic under construction by the middle of the nineteenth century, separated by these divisions of history, culture, and race.

Source: Wall Street Journal August 21, 2018 06:56 UTC