ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how early American geographical knowledge and practices were understood, took shape, and made publicly available via Charles Daly and the American Geographical Society (AGS). It turns how the ideals and programmatic interests of the AGS itself were closely linked to the interests, goals, and work of its main protagonist Daly's personal subjectivity and role as New York civic leader, scholar, revered New York judge, and especially, popularizer of geography. The book shows the powerful business interests of New York as well as political communities in the US and internationally. It also serves as something of a corrective to most critical studies of American geographical societies that begin only in 1888 with the National Geographic Society (NGS) and subsequently formal or 'official' US expansionism in the Caribbean and Pacific.
