Includes bibliographical references (pages 423-508) and index.
Contents
Boom -- Jeffersonian visions and nightmares in Louisiana -- The Panic of 1835 -- The Steamboat Sublime -- Limits to capital -- The runaway's river -- Dominion -- "The empire of the white man's will" -- The carceral landscape -- The Mississippi Valley in the time of cotton -- Capital, cotton, and free trade -- Tales of Mississippian empire -- The material limits of "Manifest Destiny" -- "The grey-eyed man of destiny" -- The ignominious effort to reopen the Atlantic slave trade.
Summary
Looks at the history of the Mississippi River Valley in the nineteenth century and the economy that developed there, powered by steam engines and slave labor.