The Irony Of Manifest Destiny

Author : William Pfaff
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 237 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2010-07-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9780802719676

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The Irony of Manifest Destiny by William Pfaff Pdf

"For years there has been little or no critical reexamination of how and why the ultimately successful postwar American policy of 'patient but firm and vigilant containment of Soviet expansionist tendencies...and pressure against the free institutions of the western world' (as George Kennan formulated it at the time) has over six decades turned into a vast project for ending tyranny in the world. We defend this position by making the claim that the United States possesses an exceptional status among nations that confers upon it special international responsibilities, and exceptional privileges in meeting those responsibilities. This is where the problem lies. It has become somewhat of a national heresy to suggest the U.S. does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not." Cogently, thoughtfully, powerfully, William Pfaff--whose columns and commentary over the past 40-odd years have given him the widest international influence of any American commentator--lays out the historical roots behind the American exceptionalism that has animated our politics and foreign relations for decades, and makes clear why it is flawed and bound to fail. Those roots lie in the secularization of western society brought about by the Enlightenment. "My proposition in this book is that the United States' spearation from 1800 to 1941 from the common history of the west has disqualified it from the mandate it has assumed as the society that embodies the future"...and in many ways is responsible for the impasse in which it finds itself at the end of the disastrous events of the last 8 years. "It has failed to learn from experience because it lacks the indispensable experience Europeans have acquired of modern ideological folly and national tragedy."

Author : Julia Magruder
Publisher : Tredition Classics
Page : 164 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2011-11
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 3842436203

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A Manifest Destiny by Julia Magruder Pdf

This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide. At tredition we believe that a great book never goes out of style. Several mostly non-profit literature projects provide content to tredition. To support their good work, tredition donates a portion of the proceeds from each sold copy. As a reader of a TREDITION CLASSICS book, you support our mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion.

Author : David S. Heidler,Jeanne T. Heidler
Publisher : Greenwood
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2003-08-30
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015057581780

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Manifest Destiny by David S. Heidler,Jeanne T. Heidler Pdf

From Colonial times through the 19th century, European Americans advanced toward the west. This book explains the origins of territorial expansion and traces the course of Manifest Destiny to its culminating moment, the conquest of Mexico and the acquisition of the western territories. It also weighs major historical interpretations that have evolved over the years, from those praising expansionism to those condemning it as imperialistic and racist. A mixture of essays, biographical portraits, primary documents, a timeline, and an annotated bibliography gives students and researchers everything they need to begin their examination of this prominent and oft-disputed concept in American history. Manifest Destiny opens with an overview that traces the causes and consequences of American expansionism. Six subsequent chapters cover topics varying from Andrew Jackson's invasion of Spanish Florida and Indian removal to the settlement of Texas and the Oregon Question. Biographical portraits of Stephen Austin, James K. Polk, Osceola, Santa Ana, John O'Sullivan—the coiner of the phrase Manifest Destiny—and others provide personal glimpses of some of the era's major players. Primary documents such as the Oregon Treaty of 1846, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and the Polk's declaration of war against Mexico enable students to see actual historical evidence from the time period. A chronology, a glossary, and an index make this the most well-rounded and recent reference source on the topic.

Author : Richard Haw
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Brooklyn Bridge (New York, N.Y.)
ISBN : 0813535875

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The Brooklyn Bridge by Richard Haw Pdf

"Bringing together more than sixty images of the bridge that, over the years, have graced postcards, magazine covers, and book jackets and appeared in advertisements, cartoons, films, and photographs, Haw traces the diverse and sometimes jarring ways in which this majestic structure has been received, adopted, and interpreted as an American idea. Haw's account is not a history of how the bridge was made, but rather of what people have made of the Brooklyn Bridge - in film, music, literature, art, and politics - from its opening ceremonies to the blackout of 2003."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Michael Wallis
Publisher : Liveright Publishing
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2017-06-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780871407702

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The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny by Michael Wallis Pdf

“A book so gripping it can scarcely be put down. . . . Superb.”— New York Times Book Review "WESTWARD HO! FOR OREGON AND CALIFORNIA!" In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and a restless caravan prepared for what they hoped would be the most rewarding journey of a lifetime. But in eagerly pursuing what would a century later become known as the "American dream," this optimistic-yet-motley crew of emigrants was met with a chilling nightmare; in the following months, their jingoistic excitement would be replaced by desperate cries for help that would fall silent in the deadly snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada. We know these early pioneers as the Donner Party, a name that has elicited horror since the late 1840s. With The Best Land Under Heaven, Wallis has penned what critics agree is “destined to become the standard account” (Washington Post) of the notorious saga. Cutting through 160 years of myth-making, the “expert storyteller” (True West) compellingly recounts how the unlikely band of early pioneers met their fate. Interweaving information from hundreds of newly uncovered documents, Wallis illuminates how a combination of greed and recklessness led to one of America’s most calamitous and sensationalized catastrophes. The result is a “fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring” (Oklahoman) examination of the darkest side of Manifest Destiny.

Author : Timothy J. Lynch
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 1489 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : History
ISBN : 9780199759255

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The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History by Timothy J. Lynch Pdf

•Entries written by renowned diplomatic and military historians as well as key scholars in international relations •Provides assessments and analyses of key episodes, issues and actors in the military and diplomatic history of the United States •Based on the award-winning Oxford Companion to United States History •Comprehensive collection of entries that span the founding of the U.S. to its present state •Offers a wide range of perspectives to provide an encompassing context of the United States' military and diplomatic legacies •Expansive bibliographies and suggested readings for each article to aid in research The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History, a two-volume set, will offer both assessment and analysis of the key episodes, issues and actors in the military and diplomatic history of the United States. At a time of war, in which ongoing efforts to recalibrate American diplomacy are as imperative as they are perilous, the Oxford Encyclopedia will present itself as the first recourse for scholars wishing to deepen their understanding of the crucial features of the historical and contemporary foreign policy landscape and its perennially martial components. Entries will be written by the top diplomatic and military historians and key scholars of international relations from within the American academy, supplemented, as is appropriate for an encyclopedia of diplomacy, with entries from foreign-based academics, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The crucial importance of the subject is reflected in the popularity of university courses dedicated to diplomatic and military history and the enduring appeal of international relations (IR) as a political science discipline drawing on both. The Oxford Encyclopedia will be a basic reference tool across both disciplines - a potentially very significant market. Readership: University-level undergraduate and graduate students in History

Author : Edmund O. Stillman,William Pfaff
Publisher : New York : Harper & Row [c1964]
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 1964
Category : World politics
ISBN : UOM:39015029911834

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The Politics of Hysteria by Edmund O. Stillman,William Pfaff Pdf

Philosophical analysis of world politics.

Author : Robert Kagan
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 546 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2007-11-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780375724916

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Dangerous Nation by Robert Kagan Pdf

Most Americans believe the United States had been an isolationist power until the twentieth century. This is wrong. In a riveting and brilliantly revisionist work of history, Robert Kagan, bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power, shows how Americans have in fact steadily been increasing their global power and influence from the beginning. Driven by commercial, territorial, and idealistic ambitions, the United States has always perceived itself, and been seen by other nations, as an international force. This is a book of great importance to our understanding of our nation’s history and its role in the global community.

Author : Almut-Barbara Renger,Jon Solomon
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 340 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2012-11-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004241923

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Ancient Worlds in Film and Television by Almut-Barbara Renger,Jon Solomon Pdf

This volume reinvigorates the field of Classical Reception by investigating present-day culture, society, and politics, particularly gender, gender roles, and filmic constructions of masculinity and femininity which shape and are shaped by interacting economic, political, and ideological practices.

Author : William Earl Weeks
Publisher : Ivan R. Dee
Page : 196 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 1997-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781461733201

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Building the Continental Empire by William Earl Weeks Pdf

In this fresh survey of foreign relations in the early years of the American republic, William Earl Weeks argues that the construction of the new nation went hand in hand with the building of the American empire. Mr. Weeks traces the origins of this initiative to the 1750s, when the Founding Fathers began to perceive the advantages of colonial union and the possibility of creating an empire within the British Empire that would provide security and the potential for commercial and territorial expansion. After the adoption of the Constitution—and a far stronger central government than had been popularly imagined—the need to expand combined with a messianic American nationalism. The result was aggressive diplomacy by successive presidential administrations. From the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida to the Mexican War, from the Monroe Doctrine to the annexation of Texas, Mr. Weeks describes the ideology and scope of American expansion in what has become known as the age of Manifest Destiny. Relations with Great Britain, France, and Spain; the role of missionaries, technology, and the federal government; and the issue of slavery are key elements in this succinct and thoughtful view of the making of the continental nation.

Author : M. Paryz
Publisher : Springer
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2012-01-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137012180

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The Postcolonial and Imperial Experience in American Transcendentalism by M. Paryz Pdf

Analyses literary representations of the American experience in selected works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman. Reveals the ambivalence that underlay the cultural and political development of the United States as a former colony.

Author : R. Ward Holder,Peter B. Josephson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2016-03-09
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781317026976

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The Irony of Barack Obama by R. Ward Holder,Peter B. Josephson Pdf

Drawing on the political theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, described by Barack Obama as 'one of my favourite philosophers', this book assesses the challenges facing the President during his first term. It evaluates his success in adhering to Niebuhr's path of 'Christian realism' when faced with the pragmatic demands of domestic and foreign affairs. In 2008 Candidate Obama used the ideas of 'Hope' and 'Change' to inspire voters and secure the presidency. Obama promised change not only regarding America's policies, but even more fundamentally in the nation's political culture. Holder and Josephson describe the foundations of President Obama's Christian faith and the extent to which it has shaped his approach to politics. Their book explores Obama's journey of faith in the context of a broadly Augustinian understanding of faith and politics, examines the tensions between Christian realism and pragmatic progressivism, explains why a Christian realist interpretation is essential to understanding Obama's presidency, and applies this model of understanding to considerations of foreign and domestic policy. By combining this theological and political analysis the book offers a special opportunity to reflect on the relationship between Christian faith and statesmanship, reflections that are missing from current popular discussions of the Obama presidency. Through consideration of Niebuhr's models of the prophet and the statesman, and the more popular alternative of the political evangelist, Holder and Josephson are better able to explain the president's successes and his failures, and to unveil the Augustinian limits of the political life.

Author : Tom Chaffin
Publisher : Univ. of Tennessee Press
Page : 145 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2014-12-31
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781621900993

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Met His Every Goal? by Tom Chaffin Pdf

Soon after winning the presidency in 1845, according to the oft-repeated anecdote, James K. Polk slapped his thigh and predicted what would be the "four great measures" of his administration: the acquisition of some or all of the Oregon Country, the acquisition of California, a reduction in tariffs, and the establishment of a permanent independent treasury. Over the next four years, the Tennessee Democrat achieved all four goals. And those milestones—along with his purported enunciation of them—have come to define his presidency. Indeed, repeated ad infinitum in U.S. history textbooks, Polk's bold listing of goals has become U.S. political history’s equivalent of Babe Ruth’s called home run of the 1932 World Series, in which the slugger allegedly gestured toward the outfield and, on the next pitch, slammed a home run. But then again, as Tom Chaffin reveals in this lively tour de force of historiographic sleuthing, like Ruth's alleged "called shot" of 1932, the "four measures" anecdote hangs by the thinnest of evidentiary threads. Indeed, not until the late 1880s, four decades after Polk’s presidency, did the story first appear in print. In this eye-opening study, Tom Chaffin, author, historian, and, since 2008, editor of the multi-volume series Correspondence of James K. Polk, dispatches the thigh-slap anecdote and other misconceptions associated with Polk. In the process, Chaffin demonstrates how the "four measures" story has skewed our understanding of the 11th U.S. president. As president, Polk enlarged his nation's area by a third—thus rendering it truly a coast-to-coast continental nation-state. Indeed, the anecdote does not record, and effectively obscures complex events, including notable failures—such as Polk's botched effort to purchase Cuba, as well as his inability to shape the terms of California's and the New Mexico territory's admission into the Union. Cuba would never enter the federal Union; and those other tasks would be left for successor presidents. Indeed, debates over the future of slavery in the United States—debates accelerated by Polk's territorial gains—eventually produced perhaps the central irony of his legacy: A president devoted to national unity further sectionalized the nation’s politics, widening geopolitical fractures among the states that soon led to civil war. Engagingly written and lavishly illustrated, Met His Every Goal?—intended for general readers, students, and specialists—offers a primer on Polk and a revisionist view of much of the scholarship concerning him and his era. Drawing on published scholarship as well as contemporary documents—including heretofore unpublished materials—it presents a fresh portrait of an enigmatic autocrat. And in Chaffin's examination of an oft-repeated anecdote long accepted as fact, readers witness a case study in how historians use primary sources to explore—and in some cases, explode—received conceptions of the past.

Author : Mark Twain
Publisher : Library of Alexandria
Page : 14 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2020-09-28
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781613100202

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The Californian's Tale by Mark Twain Pdf

Author : Gerald Vizenor
Publisher : Wesleyan University Press
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2020-09-04
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780819579355

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Satie on the Seine by Gerald Vizenor Pdf

In this historical epistolary novel from an award-winning author, Native American brothers survive the Nazi occupation of Paris. In this powerful epistolary novel, acclaimed Anishinaabe author Gerald Vizenor interweaves history, cultural stories, and irony to reveal a shadow play of truth and politics. Basile Hudon Beaulieu lives in a houseboat on the River Seine in Paris between 1932 and 1945. He observes the liberals, fascists, artists, and bohemians, and presents puppet shows. His thoughts and experiences are documented in the form of fifty letters to the heirs of the fur trade. Basile comments on the mercy of liberté, the torment and solidarity of Le Front Populaire and the alliance of political leftists, and considers at the same time the massacres of Native Americans, and the misery of federal policies on reservations in relation to the savage strategies of royalists, fascists, communists, and anti-Semites. The hand puppets created by Basile and his brother Aloysius make brilliant commentaries of their own, and the letters include accounts of parleys between the puppet versions of Gertrude Stein and Adolf Hitler, Apollinaire and Anaïs Nin, Sitting Bull and Victor Hugo, Carlos Montezuma and Émile Zola, Chief Joseph and Voltaire, and others. Vizenor is a unique voice of Native American presence in the world of literature, and in his inimitable creative style he delivers a moving, challenging, and darkly humorous commentary on war and modernity.