Synopses & Reviews
We think of the United States as a refuge from tyranny, where those willing to bear the burdens of work and the obligations of citizenship can share equally in the blessings of liberty. Far from seeing ourselves as an imperial nation, we believe we only engage in war when those who would destroy our freedom force it upon us. Liberty and equality are the core values of our Republic. This is the commonly understood account of the foundation of the United States as it is taught in our schools and written about in our history books. DOMINION OF WAR proposes a new perspective on American history that moves American imperialism center stage. Through examining the many wars fought against North American Indians, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Seven Years' War, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, World War 1, World War 11, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, award-winning historians Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton demonstrate how these conflicts were fought by Americans either to gain territory or political power as much as to defend liberty, furnishing an alternate organizing theme by which the history of this continent can be understood. They show continuing between the growth of Britain's American colonies and the revolutionary United States in the eighteenth century, the territorial expansion of the United States in the nineteenth century, and the propagation of American power throughout the western hemisphere and the world in the twentieth century, despite America's changing understanding of imperialism and its increasing desire to fully divorce itself from any perceptions of imperialist actions. Anderson andCayton renarrate American history using the stories of nine key pioneers and leaders: Samuel Champlain, William Penn, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Ulysses Grant, Arthur and Douglas MacArthur, as well as Colin Powell. Through them they sketch North America's historical trajectory and show how the American ideals of liberty, rights, and equality assumed their meanings in the context of a steady striving after territorial, political, or economic dominion. They demonstrate how republic and empire have coexisted throughout our history as two faces of the same coin--how the quest for liberty and the pursuit of power, together, have created an American historical dialectic catalyzed and made dynamic by war.
Review
"An imaginative retelling of American history from the point of view of empire and war by two very talented historians." —
Gordon S. Wood, author of
The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
"A must read... Anderson and Cayton take off the blinders and show us what the past is really like." —Vine Deloria, Jr., author of Custer Died for Your Sins
"This sweeping reinterpretation places war and empire where they should be - not as exceptions to the American past, but as central to it, and therefore to the United States today." —Michael Sherry, author of In the Shadows of War: The United States Since the 1930s
"The most important book ever written on the connection between war and American expansion. It should be required reading for our political leaders today..." —Don Higginbotham, author of The War of American Independence
"History in an ironic key, timely and provocative." —Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
With the great exceptions of the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II, Americans seldom think about how military conflict has fundamentally shaped the United States. The Dominion of War offers a startling new perspective on American history. By moving Americas forgotten conflictsits imperial warsto center stage, the authors explain how war, above all else, has been the primary means by which people of North America have defined American society for the last half-millennium.
Synopsis
Americans often think of their nation’s history as a movement toward ever-greater democracy, equality, and freedom. Wars in this story are understood both as necessary to defend those values and as exceptions to the rule of peaceful progress. In The Dominion of War, historians Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton boldly reinterpret the development of the United States, arguing instead that war has played a leading role in shaping North America from the sixteenth century to the present.
Anderson and Cayton bring their sweeping narrative to life by structuring it around the lives of eight men—Samuel de Champlain, William Penn, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur, and Colin Powell. This approach enables them to describe great events in concrete terms and to illuminate critical connections between often-forgotten imperial conflicts, such as the Seven Years’ War and the Mexican-American War, and better-known events such as the War of Independence and the Civil War. The result is a provocative, highly readable account of the ways in which republic and empire have coexisted in American history as two faces of the same coin. The Dominion of War recasts familiar triumphs as tragedies, proposes an unconventional set of turning points, and depicts imperialism and republicanism as inseparable influences in a pattern of development in which war and freedom have long been intertwined. It offers a new perspective on America’s attempts to define its role in the world at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
Americans often think of their nationandrsquo;s history as a movement toward ever-greater democracy, equality, and freedom. Wars in this story are understood both as necessary to defend those values and as exceptions to the rule of peaceful progress. In The Dominion of War, historians Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton boldly reinterpret the development of the United States, arguing instead that war has played a leading role in shaping North America from the sixteenth century to the present.
Anderson and Cayton bring their sweeping narrative to life by structuring it around the lives of eight menandmdash;Samuel de Champlain, William Penn, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur, and Colin Powell. This approach enables them to describe great events in concrete terms and to illuminate critical connections between often-forgotten imperial conflicts, such as the Seven Yearsandrsquo; War and the Mexican-American War, and better-known events such as the War of Independence and the Civil War. The result is a provocative, highly readable account of the ways in which republic and empire have coexisted in American history as two faces of the same coin. The Dominion of War recasts familiar triumphs as tragedies, proposes an unconventional set of turning points, and depicts imperialism and republicanism as inseparable influences in a pattern of development in which war and freedom have long been intertwined.and#160;and#160; It offers a new perspective on Americaandrsquo;s attempts to define its role in the world at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
About the Author
Fred Anderson is professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of several books, including Crucible of War, which won the Francis Parkman and Mark Lynton prizes.
Andrew Cayton, distinguished professor of history at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, is the author or editor of eight books, including Frontier Indiana and Ohio: The History of a People.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii
INTRODUCTION
A View in Winterix
CHAPTER ONE
Champlain’s Legacy: The Transformation of
Seventeenth-Century North America 1
CHAPTER TWO
Penn’s Bargain: The Paradoxes of Peaceable Imperialism 54
CHAPTER THREE
Washington’s Apprenticeship: Imperial
Victory and Collapse 104
CHAPTER FOUR
Washington’s Mission: The Making of an
Imperial Republic 160
CHAPTER FIVE
Jackson’s Vision: Creating a Populist Empire 207
CHAPTER SIX
Santa Anna’s Honor: Continental Counterpoint in
Republican Mexico 247
CHAPTER SEVEN
Grant’s Duty: Imperial War and Its Consequences Redux 274
CHAPTER EIGHT
MacArthur’s Inheritance: Liberty and Empire
in the Age of Intervention 317
CHAPTER NINE
MacArthur’s Valedictory: Lessons Learned, Lessons Forgotten 361
CONCLUSION
Powell’s Promise 409
NOTES 425
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 503
INDEX 507