A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830–1910

Esteemed historian Hahn (history, New York Univ.; winner of the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes for A Nation Under Our Feet) provocatively asserts that from its founding, the U.S. government has been determined to construct an empire. Using that framework, the author presents the Civil War as one of the major examples of the central government's imperial ambitions. The conquest of the South was soon followed by the subjugation of the Trans-Mississippi West. The expansion of its borders to the Pacific Ocean did not satisfy U.S. imperialistic desires, thus it turned to distant locales throughout the Pacific such as the Philippines. The emphasis on the Pacific is significant as many historians have been recently contextualizing U.S. development within the "Atlantic World." While Hahn includes key events from that sphere, he also demonstrates that myopically focusing on a limited geographic region results in key parts of the story being missed. The point is emphasized by providing background to the rise, and ultimate check, of U.S. global hegemony through the exploration of similar revolutions in other countries during the same period, most notably in Mexico.