{"product_id":"beautiful-machine-rivers-and-the-republican-plan-17551825-9780195045512","title":"Beautiful Machine: Rivers and the Republican Plan  1755-1825","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis book  the second volume in Seelyes series on the rivers of America in the American imagination  explores how George Washingtons vision of a \"more perfect union\" for America--based upon the linking of the nations waterways by technical means--was carried out. The first volume  Prophetic Waters  dealt with the way rivers  especially in Virginia  influenced life and literature of the period. This book takes the story into the opening decades of the nineteenth century by showing  first  the exploration of the Ohio  Missouri  and Mississippi rivers  then the construction of the canals that connected these water systems  and finally  the creation of steamboats to navigate these Western rivers. Yet the net result  as Seelye shows  was quite different from  even antithetical to  Washingtons original vision. Seelye ranges widely in the literature and personal narratives of the period to put these developments in an imaginative and cultural context.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647895167029,"sku":"ByrdShop_0195045513","price":66.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195045512.jpg?v=1781699319","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/beautiful-machine-rivers-and-the-republican-plan-17551825-9780195045512","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}