James K Polk And The Expansionist Impulse

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James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse

Author : Sam Walter Haynes
Publisher : Longman Publishing Group
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : STANFORD:36105110395758

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James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse by Sam Walter Haynes Pdf

This biography of the 11th president explores the expansion of the United States during his administration and the policy known as "Manifest Destiny."

James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse

Author : Sam Walter Haynes
Publisher : Addison-Wesley Longman
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : UOM:39015063205317

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James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse by Sam Walter Haynes Pdf

This biography explores the controversies, triumphs, and failures of the presidency of James K. Polk. Sam W. Haynes places Polk's expansionist agenda in both political and social contexts and examines the nature and origins of the expansionist impulse. Paperback, brief, and inexpensive, each of the titles in the Library of American Biography series focuses on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of American History and national life. In addition, each biography relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times. This text incorporates the latest scholarship and draws upon the longer, far more extensive studies of Polk's life and times, but makes the story accessible to students in both survey and upper division courses in American history.

Polk

Author : Walter R. Borneman
Publisher : Random House
Page : 466 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2009-04-14
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781588367723

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Polk by Walter R. Borneman Pdf

In Polk, Walter R. Borneman gives us the first complete and authoritative biography of a president often overshadowed in image but seldom outdone in accomplishment. James K. Polk occupied the White House for only four years, from 1845 to 1849, but he plotted and attained a formidable agenda: He fought for and won tariff reductions, reestablished an independent Treasury, and, most notably, brought Texas into the Union, bluffed Great Britain out of the lion’s share of Oregon, and wrested California and much of the Southwest from Mexico. On reflection, these successes seem even more impressive, given the contentious political environment of the time. In this unprecedented, long-overdue warts-and-all look at Polk’s life and career, we have a portrait of an expansionist president and decisive statesman who redefined the country he led, and we are reminded anew of the true meaning of presidential accomplishment and resolve.

James K. Polk

Author : Alison Tibbitts
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 132 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0766010376

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James K. Polk by Alison Tibbitts Pdf

James K. Polk is one of the few American presidents who was able to achieve all of his stated political goals. In one year alone, he reduced the tariff, established an independent treasury, and negotiated the boundary of Oregon. With the successful conclusion of the Mexican War, Polk achieved his final goal of acquiring California and all of present-day Texas. This book details the life of the eleventh president who, though virtually unknown, became the first dark horse candidate to be elected.

James K. Polk

Author : Thomas M. Leonard
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0842026479

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James K. Polk by Thomas M. Leonard Pdf

James K. Polk's four years in office marked the greatest period of territorial acquisition in the history of the USA. This is an analysis of each of these expansions, showing that they were far more complex than the moral crusade that had been labelled Manifest Destiny.

Slavemaster President

Author : William Dusinberre
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2007-10-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780199924189

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Slavemaster President by William Dusinberre Pdf

James Polk was President of the United States from 1845 to 1849, a time when slavery began to dominate American politics. Polk's presidency coincided with the eruption of the territorial slavery issue, which within a few years would lead to the catastrophe of the Civil War. Polk himself owned substantial cotton plantations-- in Tennessee and later in Mississippi-- and some 50 slaves. Unlike many antebellum planters who portrayed their involvement with slavery as a historical burden bestowed onto them by their ancestors, Polk entered the slave business of his own volition, for reasons principally of financial self-interest. Drawing on previously unexplored records, Slavemaster President recreates the world of Polk's plantation and the personal histories of his slaves, in what is arguably the most careful and vivid account to date of how slavery functioned on a single cotton plantation. Life at the Polk estate was brutal and often short. Fewer than one in two slave children lived to the age of fifteen, a child mortality rate even higher than that on the average plantation. A steady stream of slaves temporarily fled the plantation throughout Polk's tenure as absentee slavemaster. Yet Polk was in some respects an enlightened owner, instituting an unusual incentive plan for his slaves and granting extensive privileges to his most favored slave. Startlingly, Dusinberre shows how Polk sought to hide from public knowledge the fact that, while he was president, he was secretly buying as many slaves as his plantation revenues permitted. Shortly before his sudden death from cholera, the president quietly drafted a new will, in which he expressed the hope that his slaves might be freed--but only after he and his wife were both dead. The very next day, he authorized the purchase, in strictest secrecy, of six more very young slaves. By contrast with Senator John C. Calhoun, President Polk has been seen as a moderate Southern Democratic leader. But Dusinberre suggests that the president's political stance toward slavery-- influenced as it was by his deep personal involvement in the plantation system-- may actually have helped precipitate the Civil War that Polk sought to avoid.

Conservative Internationalism

Author : Henry R. Nau
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2015-08-25
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780691168494

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Conservative Internationalism by Henry R. Nau Pdf

A reexamination of America's overloaded foreign policy tradition and its importance for global politics today Debates about U.S. foreign policy have revolved around three main traditions—liberal internationalism, realism, and nationalism. In this book, distinguished political scientist Henry Nau delves deeply into a fourth, overlooked foreign policy tradition that he calls "conservative internationalism." This approach spreads freedom, like liberal internationalism; arms diplomacy, like realism; and preserves national sovereignty, like nationalism. It targets a world of limited government or independent "sister republics," not a world of great power concerts or centralized international institutions. Nau explores conservative internationalism in the foreign policies of Thomas Jefferson, James Polk, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan. These presidents did more than any others to expand the arc of freedom using a deft combination of force, diplomacy, and compromise. Since Reagan, presidents have swung back and forth among the main traditions, overreaching under Bush and now retrenching under Obama. Nau demonstrates that conservative internationalism offers an alternative way. It pursues freedom but not everywhere, prioritizing situations that border on existing free countries—Turkey, for example, rather than Iraq. It uses lesser force early to influence negotiations rather than greater force later after negotiations fail. And it reaches timely compromises to cash in military leverage and sustain public support. A groundbreaking revival of a neglected foreign policy tradition, Conservative Internationalism shows how the United States can effectively sustain global leadership while respecting the constraints of public will and material resources.

Notes of the Mexican War, 1846–1848

Author : J. Jacob Oswandel
Publisher : Univ. of Tennessee Press
Page : 393 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2010-07-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9781572337107

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Notes of the Mexican War, 1846–1848 by J. Jacob Oswandel Pdf

In December 1846, John Jacob Oswandel—or Jake as he was often called—enlisted in the Monroe Guards, which later became Company C of the First Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. Thus began a twenty-month journey that led Oswandel from rural Pennsylvania through the American South, onward to the siege of Veracruz, and finally deep into the heart of Mexico. Waging war with Mexico ultimately realized President James K. Polk’s long-term goal of westward expansion all the way to the Pacific Ocean. For General Winfield Scott, the victorious Mexico City campaign would prove his crowning achievement in a fifty-three-year military career, but for Oswandel the “grand adventure of our lives” was about patriotism and honor in a war that turned this twenty-something bowsman into a soldier. Notes of the Mexican War, 1846–1848, is the quintessential primary source on the Mexican War. From Oswandel’s time of enlistment in Pennsylvania to his discharge in July of 1848, he kept a daily record of events, often with the perception and intuition worthy of a highly ranked officer. In addition to Oswandel’s engaging narrative, Timothy D. Johnson and Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr. provide an introduction that places Oswandel’s memoir within present-day scholarship. They illuminate the mindset of Oswandel and his comrades, who viewed the war with Mexico in terms of Manifest Destiny and they give insight into Oswandel’s historically common belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority—views that would bring about far worse consequences at the outbreak of the American Civil War a dozen years later. As historians continue to highlight the controversial actions of the Polk administration and the expansionist impulse that led to the conflict, Notes of the Mexican War, 1846–1848, opens a window into the past when typical young men rallied to a cause they believed was just and ordained. Oswandel provides an eyewitness account of an important chapter in America’s history.

Lincoln in the World

Author : Kevin Peraino
Publisher : Crown
Page : 442 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2014-10-28
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780307887214

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Lincoln in the World by Kevin Peraino Pdf

A captivating look at how Abraham Lincoln evolved into one of our seminal foreign-policy presidents—and helped point the way to America’s rise to world power. Abraham Lincoln is not often remembered as a great foreign-policy president. He had never traveled overseas and spoke no foreign languages. And yet, during the Civil War, Lincoln and his team skillfully managed to stare down the Continent’s great powers—deftly avoiding European intervention on the side of the Confederacy. In the process, the United States emerged as a world power in its own right. Engaging, insightful, and highly original, Lincoln in the World is a tale set at the intersection of personal character and national power. Focusing on five distinct, intensely human conflicts that helped define Lincoln’s approach to foreign affairs—from his debate, as a young congressman, with his law partner over the conduct of the Mexican War, to his deadlock with Napoleon III over the French occupation of Mexico—and bursting with colorful characters like Lincoln’s bowie-knife-wielding minister to Russia, Cassius Marcellus Clay; the cunning French empress, Eugénie; and the hapless Mexican monarch Maximilian, Lincoln in the World draws a finely wrought portrait of a president and his team at the dawn of American power. Anchored by meticulous research into overlooked archives, Lincoln in the World reveals the sixteenth president to be one of America’s indispensable diplomats—and a key architect of America’s emergence as a global superpower. Much has been written about how Lincoln saved the Union, but Lincoln in the World highlights the lesser-known—yet equally vital—role he played on the world stage during those tumultuous years of war and division.

A Wicked War

Author : Amy S. Greenberg
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2013-08-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780307475992

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A Wicked War by Amy S. Greenberg Pdf

The definitive history of the often forgotten U.S.-Mexican War paints an intimate portrait of the major players and their world—from Indian fights and Manifest Destiny, to secret military maneuvers, gunshot wounds, and political spin. “If one can read only a single book about the Mexican-American War, this is the one to read.” —The New York Review of Books Often overlooked, the U.S.-Mexican War featured false starts, atrocities, and daring back-channel negotiations as it divided the nation, paved the way for the Civil War a generation later, and launched the career of Abraham Lincoln. Amy S. Greenberg’s skilled storytelling and rigorous scholarship bring this American war for empire to life with memorable characters, plotlines, and legacies. Along the way it captures a young Lincoln mismatching his clothes, the lasting influence of the Founding Fathers, the birth of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and America’s first national antiwar movement. A key chapter in the creation of the United States, it is the story of a burgeoning nation and an unforgettable conflict that has shaped American history.

Unfinished Revolution

Author : Sam Walter Haynes
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : History
ISBN : 9780813930688

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Unfinished Revolution by Sam Walter Haynes Pdf

"This is a clear, incisively written narrative history of American anxiety about British domination---political, military, economic, cultural---from the War of 1812 to the mid-nineteenth century. Unfinished Revolution's predominant thoughtfulness and readable verve across a very extensive canvass should commend it to a wide range of readers as a valuable reconnaissance of what was arguably the most consequential national anxiety faced by the `young republic' during its middle period."---Lawrence Buell, Harvard University --

American Crusades

Author : Jon DePriest
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 375 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2018-11-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781498579858

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American Crusades by Jon DePriest Pdf

American Crusades details evangelical pursuits to unite God’s purposes with American empires. It argues that religious motivations contributed heavily to United States governmental policies and built sacred spaces in many attempts to influence American society. These embedded ambitions form the core of Americanism, yet somehow remain hidden right in front of our eyes. In the action of caretaking, they advanced their understanding of God’s demand on their lives and purposes. Evangelical and theologically conservative Americans linked the sacred and secular, shaping the ethos of the American people. The terminology of religious thinking quickly sacralized concepts like democracy and capitalism in an attempt to control and use them. Once packaged as a sacred space in need of custody, religious leadership sought to fulfill its kingdom responsibility and secure its future. Eventually, a combination of religiously defined secular components coalesced into the term known simply as Americanism. Building on the success of the new nation and supporting the causes of Americanism throughout the world has imprinted a uniquely evangelical construct into the domestic and foreign policy structures of the United States. The shifting landscape of American culture drove evangelicalism into the margins in the 1970s, while most scholars think that the decline of religious conservatism in culture meant that secularization controlled foreign policy as well, this is not true. Removed from the whims of domestic politics, Protestant evangelical patterns of action have resisted change in American foreign policy structures. Over time, however, the movement lost its faith distinctives while embedding religious principles in foundations of U.S. foreign policy. This book seeks to produce a reorganized narrative through a critical synthesis to locate white evangelicals’ quest to be the foundational voice in America’s shaping ideological lineage.

A Country of Vast Designs

Author : Robert W. Merry
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 592 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2010-11-02
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780743297448

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A Country of Vast Designs by Robert W. Merry Pdf

Explores the one-term presidency of James K. Polk, during which the United States extended its territory across the continent by threatening England and manufacturing a controversial war with Mexico that Abraham Lincoln opposed.

James K. Polk

Author : John Seigenthaler
Publisher : Times Books
Page : 207 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2014-03-11
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781466865976

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James K. Polk by John Seigenthaler Pdf

The story of a pivotal president who watched over our westward expansion and solidified the dream of Jacksonian democracy James K. Polk was a shrewd and decisive commander in chief, the youngest president elected to guide the still-young nation, who served as Speaker of the House and governor of Tennessee before taking office in 1845. Considered a natural successor to Andrew Jackson, "Young Hickory" miraculously revived his floundering political career by riding a wave of public sentiment in favor of annexing the Republic of Texas to the Union. Shortly after his inauguration, he settled the disputed Oregon boundary and by 1846 had declared war on Mexico in hopes of annexing California. The considerably smaller American army never lost a battle. At home, however, Polk suffered a political firestorm of antiwar attacks from many fronts. Despite his tremendous accomplishments, he left office an extremely unpopular man, on whom stress had taken such a physical toll that he died within three months of departing Washington. Fellow Tennessean John Seigenthaler traces the life of this president who, as Truman noted, "said what he intended to do and did it."

What Hath God Wrought

Author : Daniel Walker Howe
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 928 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2007-10-29
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199726578

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What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe Pdf

The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. In this Pulitzer prize-winning, critically acclaimed addition to the series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent. A panoramic narrative, What Hath God Wrought portrays revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. Railroads, canals, newspapers, and the telegraph dramatically lowered travel times and spurred the spread of information. These innovations prompted the emergence of mass political parties and stimulated America's economic development from an overwhelmingly rural country to a diversified economy in which commerce and industry took their place alongside agriculture. In his story, the author weaves together political and military events with social, economic, and cultural history. Howe examines the rise of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party, but contends that John Quincy Adams and other Whigs--advocates of public education and economic integration, defenders of the rights of Indians, women, and African-Americans--were the true prophets of America's future. In addition, Howe reveals the power of religion to shape many aspects of American life during this period, including slavery and antislavery, women's rights and other reform movements, politics, education, and literature. Howe's story of American expansion culminates in the bitterly controversial but brilliantly executed war waged against Mexico to gain California and Texas for the United States. Winner of the New-York Historical Society American History Book Prize Finalist, 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction The Oxford History of the United States The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. The Atlantic Monthly has praised it as "the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship," a series that "synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book." Conceived under the general editorship of C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter, and now under the editorship of David M. Kennedy, this renowned series blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative.