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REVIEWS
SEIZING DESTINY: HOW AMERICA GREW FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA
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by Richard Kluger
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| Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2007. Maps, notes, index. 667 pages. $35.00 cloth. |
| It has been some time since an author has attempted such a sweeping narrative of the rapid expansion of the United States from the Revolution to the War of 1898 and its aftermath, including the finagled Panamanian Revolution, which, as they always did along the path of Manifest Destiny, American promoters promised would bring the blessings of liberty to local inhabitants who now came under their protection. Historical trends for some time have leaned away from Richard Kluger's approach, with its emphasis on the individuals who manipulated foreign statesmen to yield to Washington D.C.'s desires. Still, this is not "Great Man" history in the sense of Mount Rushmore. The author's sketches of American leaders and their opportunities are matched with equally well-accomplished portraits of foreign leaders and their difficulties. He is familiar with, and uses a wide range of, secondary sources in what must inevitably be a work of synthesis. For the most part, he provides a near seamless narrative, if one that, on occasion, becomes a bit over-laden with detail for the average reader. |
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Kluger sees the story of American expansion as a nation filled with land-hungry settlers, who, while they preached the virtues of the hardy yeomen class to Native Americans (as Jefferson did before concluding they were incapable of absorbing the lesson, and turned to removal as the only solution), failed to follow the most elementary rules of successful farming as practiced in Europe. In a sense, of course, the attitude was: Why should we? With all the land stretching out across the continent, it was easier to add new territory than to worry about depleting the soil with one-crop agriculture and by allowing fields to lie fallow. A related issue pertained to the cost of good farmlands. The political system would only work if cost could be held down. In a somewhat oblique fashion, therefore, Kluger invokes Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis as an explanation for the way American democracy worked in the nineteenth century. |
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Ruminating about his deal with Napoleon to secure the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson wrote years later that he had been among those who believed that great size was not compatible with a democratic system. But now, he wrote, "who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? The larger our association, the less will it be shaken by local passions" (p. 296). More territory, observes Kluger, seemed to guarantee a safer nation and a more stable government. A special bonus about the purchase, accordingly, offered the president the ability to reconcile his lost faith in acculturation of the native Americans, with a place to send them, "where they could persist in their Stone Age benightedness" (p. 297). By the time of the Mexican War, the nation had completely convinced itself of the righteousness of its cause, and presidents such as James K. Polk often found themselves trailing popular opinion. Brooklyn Eagle editor Walt Whitman railed, "Yes: Mexico must be thoroughly chastised." The time had come for the world to realize that "America knows how to crush ... as well as how to expand" (p. 444). |
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Time and time again, however, the nation's destiny was shaped not only by its "go ahead" statesmen, who astounded their European counterparts with their audacity and energy, but also because of favorable circumstances that convinced Old World leaders to get out of the way and make the best deal they could. This was especially true, of course, in terms of the unfolding of events that led to the first great addition, the Louisiana Purchase. Had Napoleon not found his forces bogged down in Haiti, for example, how would he have decided about pursuing an empire in the New World? James K. Polk and the acquisition of California through war with Mexico, and tough threats to London over Oregon, offer variations on the theme. Mexico would not back down, but London did. Kluger makes the point that the game had been played so successfully since Jefferson that American presidents grew more and more emboldened, feeling their powers grow as the nation's territory grew. Polk was perhaps the supreme bluffer of the nineteenth century, but in reality, he read the auguries right. His outlandish demand for an expanded Oregon was intended for internal political consumption to hold together a Democratic Party already fissuring over the hopeless attempt to balance slave and free territory all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The British came around, and Polk had a strategy that worked in the short term; he divided the senate's constitutional responsibilities of "advice" and "consent" by asking the body for its advice about accepting such a settlement, then, depending on their answer, consent to the treaty. In the long run, of course, such finagling did not prevent the Civil War. If Polk and others believed that filling out the continent would cause the uproar over competition between the slave and anti-slave forces to diminish because the nation had run out of territories to dispute when it reached the Pacific, they were dead wrong. |
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Kluger presents his story from the perspective of a critical friendly observer with a stake in its outcome. He believes that we can learn from history, and that we have to in a world where the simple solutions to land hunger, energy supplies, and the necessities of life will not be to shove others aside. Having risen so high by seizing every opportunity fate presented, he concludes, new leaders will perhaps realize "they cannot sustain their primacy by claiming entitlement to mastery abroad and continuing to neglect the social pathogens stalking their homeland" (p. 603). |
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| Lloyd Gardner
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| Newtown, Pennsylvania |
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