The Rising American Empire (1974) torrent

The Rising American Empire (1974)


Author: Richard W. Van Alstyne


Table of contents:


I Introduction. The Conception of an American Empire

II Independence and the Alliance with France,1775-1778

III The French Alliance: Marriage and Divorce, 1778-1800

IV The Birth of the American Leviathan, 1789-1823

V Manifest Destiny and Empire, 1820-1870

VI Empire of Commerce and Religion in the Pacific

VII The Thrust into the Caribbean, 1848-1917

III The Lure of East Asia

IX Apotheosis

Index

Maps

Eastern North America
Western North America


# of pages: 243


Description (from the Preface):


THIS book—an outgrowth of the Commonwealth Fund Lectures which I had the honour to deliver at University College London in 1956—is a study of the origins and the emergence of the United States as a national state and of its subsequent growth pattern. It views the United States relative to other national states, possessing
like them (and being possessed by) clearly recognizable nationalist urges or drives. The entire course of American history coincides with the rise of modern nationalism ; and, set in this frame of reference, the American Empire, as its founders so conceived it, provides an excellent introduction to the study of international history.

In these pages I have tried to convey a sense of direction and unbroken continuity in the history of the United States. The early colonies were no sooner established in the seventeenth century than expansionist impulses began to register in each of them. Imperial patterns took shape, and before the middle of the eighteenth century
the concept of an empire that would take in the whole continent was fully formed. A drive south into the Spanish Caribbean was also in progress, with the ultimate goal in view of converting the Caribbean into an American lake. In the Revolution the spirit of conquest was a powerful force, and it took about a century thereafter
to satisfy the territorial ambitions of the United States. Except for the internal dissension which was a constant factor during the first half of the nineteenth century, and which finally exploded into a civil war of vast proportions, it seems probable that these ambitions would have been pursued more persistently and energetically, that indeed they would have been pushed to the limit. But, by the time of the Mexican War, the controversy between North and South developed into an obsession; and further conquests became for the time being impossible. On the North American continent American expansion reached its maximum limits by 1867, the process of advance having been delayed long enough to enable the Canadians
to develop the necessary counter-moves. The two related drives,south into the Caribbean and westward to China via Cape Horn, continued to the end of the century, when a burst of energy finished off the process in a war against Spain. From the island conquests of that war the United States emerged a satiated power, so that thereafter American statesmen could truthfully say, with Woodrow
Wilson, that ' never again 'would the United States ' seek one additional foot of territory by conquest '. The sentiment became a fixation, repeated on innumerable occasions, but it is irrelevant.

The structure of the American Empire thus was completed some sixty years ago; and since my object in this book is to analyze the construction process, I view my task as, in the main, finished with the first decade of the present century. The process of empire-building continues, of course, but thereafter it is more of a problem of consolidation and rendering secure what has been gained. So as to round out the book and emphasize this all-important factor of historical continuity, I have tried in the concluding chapter, to describe, with necessary brevity, this period of consolidation....



Opinion:

This book is relevant today as it was when first published in 1960! Why? The U.S. empire remains, although clearly decaying with another (i.e., China? -- not ISIS) on the rise