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If you’re reading this newsletter, it’s safe to say we share a common fascination with lighthouses, particularly the iconic Chicago Harbor Lighthouse.
Have you ever gazed out at our lighthouse and let your thoughts drift to the vastness of Lake Michigan, or even further, to the entire Great Lakes system? Have you ever been curious about the rich political, social, environmental and economic history that shaped the Great Lakes and their many lighthouses and navigational aids, including our beloved Chicago Harbor Lighthouse?
If so, we have the perfect fall book recommendation for you, and it’s quite a story! Theodore J. Karamanski is a distinguished professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, where he is a leading expert in American history, particularly in the areas of maritime history, environmental history, and public history. With a career spanning several decades, Karamanski has made significant contributions to the understanding of the Great Lakes region, Native American history, and the impact of the Civil War on the American landscape.
Ted, as we know him, is also a member of the Friends of the Chicago Harbor Lighthouse volunteer working group where he advises and assists us with historical research. Ted is also a long-time board member of the Chicago Maritime Museum, Chicago’s preeminent maritime history museum.
This sweeping maritime history demonstrates the far-ranging impact that the tools and infrastructure developed for navigating the Great Lakes had on the national economies, politics, and environment of continental North America. Synthesizing popular histories and original scholarship, Karamanski weaves a colorful narrative illustrating how disparate private and government interests transformed these vast and dangerous waters into the largest inland water transportation system in the world.
Karamanski explores the navigational and sailing tools of First Nations peoples and early European maritime sailors’ dismissive and foolhardy attitudes. He investigates the role played by commercial boats in the Underground Railroad as well as how the federal development of crucial navigational resources exacerbated sectionalism in the antebellum United States.
Ultimately Mastering the Inland Seas shows the undeniable environmental impact of technologies used by the modern commercial maritime industry. This expansive story illuminates how infrastructure investment in the regions’ interconnected waterways contributed to North America’s lasting economic and political development. In short, this book provides us with a broad and deep context for the development of lighthouses, harbors, and other navigational improvements on the Great Lakes, and it’s a compelling read.
What others have said:
“Magnificently researched and written with clarity and high energy, Karamanski’s Mastering the Inland Seas tells the hidden history of how generations of maritime peoples—from Indigenous canoe paddlers to modern mariners—navigated and domesticated the watery wilderness of the Great Lakes.”
Michael Morrissey, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
“Karamanski’s prodigious research anchors the book. He provides the kind of gritty detail that derive only from exhaustive research in primary sources. He mines archival and newspaper collections from around the Great Lakes, the records of government agencies, diaries of ship captains, and more.”—The Annals of Iowa
Rare is the history book that belongs on the shelves of scholars and enthusiasts alike. However,with its fascinating subject, rich narrative, and compelling analysis, this is such a book.”
—CHOICE Reviews.
“If you are a lighthouse fan, Civil War buff, weather geek, boat owner, or just love the Great Lakes. . . Mastering the Inland Seas: How Lighthouses, Navigational Aids, and Harbors Transformed the Great Lakes and America has something to interest you.”
—Ogemaw County Voice
To purchase Mastering the Inland Seas, click here:
Mastering Inland Seas on Amazon
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