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Natural Law and National Science: The “Star of Empire” in Manifest Destiny and the American Observatory Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Craig Howard White
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From its revolution based on Newtonian physics to its Star-Spangled Banner on the Moon, the United States of America shares with astronomy a worldview of infinite expansion. As above, so below: in space, myriad galaxies multiply the stars; on earth, cities of light interminably sprawl with people and production. This cosmology of growth, which first materialized in the scientific revolution and conquest of America during the European Renaissance, reemerges in the “American Renaissance” of the 1840s and 1850s when the American Observatory Movement and Manifest Destiny declare expansion a natural law for the heavens and North America.

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Research Article
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Prospects , Volume 20 , October 1995 , pp. 119 - 160
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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