Adam Arenson

Frontier Cities: Encounters at the Crossroads of Empire

Introduction: Local Crossroads, Global Networks, and Frontier Cities Jay Gitlin, Barbara -Berglund, and Adam Arenson I. PRECEDENTS: IMPERIAL PLANS AND COMMERCIAL VENTURES Chapter 1. The European Frontier City in Early Modern Asia: Goa, Macau, and Manila -Alan Gallay Chapter 2. Colonial Projects and Frontier Practices: The First Century of New Orleans History -Daniel H. Usner, Jr. II. URBAN SPACE AND FRONTIER REALITIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Chapter 3. Insinuating Empire: Indians, Smugglers, and the Imperial Geography of Eighteenth-Century Montreal -Brett Rushforth Chapter 4. On the Edge of the West: The Roots and Routes of Detroits Urban Eighteenth Century -Karen Marrero Chapter 5. People of the Pen, People of the Sword: Pittsburgh in 1774 -Carolyn Gilman III. NETWORKS AND FLOWS: THE FRONTIER CITY IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES Chapter 6. Grain Kings, Rubber Dreams, and Stock Exchanges: How Transportation and Communication Changed Frontier Cities -Elliott West Chapter 7. Frontier Ghosts Along the Urban Pacific Slope -Matthew Klingle IV. RENDERINGS: VISUALIZING AND READING THE FRONTIER CITY Chapter 8. Locating the Frontier City in Time and Space: Documenting a Passing Phenomenon -Timothy R. Mahoney Chapter 9. Mapping the Urban Frontier and Losing Frontier Cities -Peter J. Kastor Chapter 10. Private Libraries and Global Worlds: Books and Print Culture in Colonial St. Louis -John Hoover Epilogue. Frontier Cities and the Return of Globalization -Jay Gitlin, Barbara Berglund, and Adam Arenson Notes List of Contributors Index Acknowledgments

This is not how my book starts: looking back at writing and framing

Adam Arenson shares his first enthusiastic draft opening and his plan to shape a history of Civil War St. Louis around a series of one-night encounters narrated by a street barker – and why, upon further reflection, he cut out this writing he had loved. He discusses its value as an artifact of the writing and editing process that led to his first book.