Mental Territories
Katherine G. Morrissey
Rarely recognized outside its boundaries today, the Pacific Northwest region known at the turn of the century as the Inland Empire included portions of the states of Washington and Idaho, as well as British Columbia. Katherine G. Morrissey traces the history of this self-proclaimed region from its origins through its heyday. In doing so, she challenges the characterization of regions as fixed places defined by their geography, economy, and demographics. Regions, she argues, are best understood as mental constructs, internally defined through conflicts and debates among different groups of people seeking to control a particular area's identity and direction. She tells the story of the Inland Empire as a complex narrative of competing perceptions and interests.
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About Katherine G. Morrissey
Reviews for Mental Territories
Australasian Journal of American Studies
An example of fine interdisciplinary scholarship that draws on a wealth of theoretical support and on an impressive array of primary sources, Mental Territories may be considered a model of a new approach to regional history and geography... It is a book that I will recommend to colleagues and students looking for deeper ways of understanding America's regional diversity.
Journal of American History
A model case study of the nature of boosterism that was central to the aspirations of many of the West's would-be metropolitan centers. Morrissey's liberal use of a fascinating series of promotional maps and illustrations amply documents that municipal passion.... Mental Territories is a valuable study, and not just for a single community and subregion. It takes an in-depth look at the intellectual process itself and thus offers students of the West a good example of the analytical tools that can be used to examine municipal boosterism and the perceptual construction of region.
Western Historical Quarterly
Mental Territories is an intellectual history.... This book is beautifully written.... The best history combines thoughtful analysis, fine writing, and good storytelling—and Morrissey excels at all three.
Pacific Northwest Quarterly
Mental Territories offers a fresh focus on a part of the country that has long been outside the American mainstream.
Reviews in American History
Morrissey's book is a synthesis drawn from an extensive geographic literature that ranges from mental mapping and perceptual geographies to exhaustive regional studies.... Good bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
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