Before this book first appeared in 1963, most historians wrote as if the continental expansion of the United States were inevitable. "What is most impressive," Henry Steele Commager and Richard Morris declared in 1956, "is the ease, the simplicity, and seeming inevitability of the whole process." The notion of inevitability, however, is perhaps only a secular variation on the theme of the expansionist editor John L. O'Sullivan, who in 1845 coined one of the most famous phrases in American history when he wrote of "our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." Frederick Merk rejected inevitability in favor of a more contingent interpretation of American expansionism in the 1840s. As his student Henry May later recalled, Merk "loved to get the facts straight." --From the Foreword by John Mack Faragher
This fascinating study sheds new light on antebellum America's notorious "filibusters--the freebooters and adventurers who organized or participated in armed invasions of nations with whom the United States was formally at peace. Offering the first full-scale analysis of the filibustering movement, Robert May relates the often-tragic stories of illegal expeditions into Cuba, Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and other Latin American countries and details surprising numbers of aborted plots, as well. May investigates why thousands of men joined filibustering expeditions, how they were financed, and why the U.S. government had little success in curtailing them. Surveying antebellum popular media, he shows how the filibustering phenomenon infiltrated the American psyche in newspapers, theater, music, advertising, and literature. Condemned abroad as pirates, frequently in language strikingly similar to modern American denunciations of foreign terrorists, the filibusters were often celebrated at home as heroes who epitomized the spirit of Manifest Destiny. May concludes by exploring the national consequences of filibustering, arguing that the practice inflicted lasting damage on U.S. relations with foreign countries and contributed to the North-South division over slavery that culminated in the Civil War.
Manifest Destiny the name given in the 1840s to a belief that the coast-to-coast expansion of the United States was both inevitable and justified, regardless of the means. Standing in the way were not only the native populations, but also the descendants of Spanish settlers who had lived in the Southwest for centuries. The racist belief that white men rightfully should expand their institutions into the area brought the United States into conflict with Mexico. War was declared in 1846, and by the time the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848, ending the war, the US had gained territory that contains all or part of the states of California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico.? This book richly explores this fascinating part of history.
In 1804, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began an expedition into the uncharted American frontier. This is the story of the monsters they discovered lurking in the wilds. Spring has sprung, and the Corps of Discovery is closing in on the Pacific! But new beginnings mean new horrors for Lewis and Clark, and out on the American plains, a sleeping beast has awoken! Collects MANIFEST DESTINY #37-42
DIVA rollicking adventure starring a young Theodore Roosevelt /divDIVIn 1884, Teddy Roosevelt’s political career is dead in the water. A New York state assemblyman with eyes on national office, he finds his ambitions thwarted just months after his wife and infant daughter pass away. Frustrated by politics, he retires to the American West to ride, ranch, and hunt buffalo in the Dakota Badlands. Nobody tells him that the buffalo are gone./divDIV /divDIVHe arrives in Dakota a greenhorn, awkward in the saddle and unused to Western clothes. But his aristocratic charm, natural intelligence, and love of nature impress the hardened frontiersmen, forming a bond that lasts the rest of their lives. When a wealthy French marquis threatens the pristine country he has fallen in love with, Roosevelt joins with the Dakotans to defend it. Before the presidency, before San Juan Hill, it was in Dakota that Theodore Roosevelt became a man./div
To survive in the Frontier, one needs quick wits and a quicker draw. Death runs close at paw out here, close enough that the dead whisper in the ears of the living, speaking to them through heirlooms and echoes. In the paws of a bunny gunslinger rest one such inheritance: a pair of silver pistols tied to her fallen father's spirit. Armed against an unknown destiny, it'll take all her grit and gumption to survive. Six Shooter talks tough, fights tougher, and draws faster than the most of men. In fact, most folks are convinced she is one, which is fine by her. After robbing a lion tycoon with a deadly source of power, though, she gets more than she bargained for. On the run, her only chance at survival is to work with the local sheriff, a handsome fruit bat who knows her secret. Together, they must fight to uncover a mystery her father left behind, or watch their luck--and their lives--run out. With cover and interior illustrations by ShinigamiGirl.
"Aligning Emerson and Thoreau with exploration narratives by Lewis and Clark, Pike, and others, West of Emerson realigns the standard map of regional American literature. Focusing on New England, it reorients our understanding of the literature of the west. Fresonke writes with grace and wit and sees the rhetoric of both manifest destiny and New England Transcendentalism with new eyes."—Brook Thomas, author of American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract
When John O'Sullivan wrote in 1845, "...the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of Liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us", he coined a phrase that aptly describes how Americans from colonial days and into the twentieth century perceived their privileged role. Anders Stephanson examines the consequences of this idea over more than three hundred years of history, as Manifest Destiny drove the westward settlement to the Pacific, defining the stubborn belief in the superiority of white people and denigrating Native Americans and other people of color. He considers it a component in Woodrow Wilson's campaign "to make the world safe for democracy" and a strong factor in Ronald Reagan's administration.
In 1803, Lewis and Clark were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the uncharted United States westward. Not to mention kill every damn creature in their path. Now, the Pacific Coast is within sight, and their long and terrifying journey is almost over. There is just the matter of resolving their bargain with a demonÉ In 2013, CHRIS DINGESS and MATTHEW ROBERTS began their acclaimed historical adventure seriesÉnow, they begin their final adventure, and may God save our souls.