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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic, October 2, 2000
In this classic work, the author traces American expansionism back to the Louisiana Purchase of 1804. The notion of Manifest Destiny itself dates from the 1840's and America's designs on Mexico and its territories. Essentially, Manifest Destiny expresses a doctrine of territorial expansion that is predetermined by some fateful American attribute of one kind or another. Weinberg's book is particularly valuable for both its historical account and its analytic understanding of America's missionary zeal.Early on, expansionists saw the Hand of God behind America's civilizing mission. Other rationales emerged over the decades, including extension of political liberties to benighted peoples and/or making use of unused land. In Weinberg's view, the Founding Fathers tended to be anti-expansionist, believing that the natural lights of liberty would transmit infectiously, producing liberation movements in neighboring lands. Later on, such optimism receded, leaving a surrounding vacuum for the young Republic to fill which it often did with a vengeance. As Weinberg points out, anti-expansionist sentiments have historically competed with their opposite, making unabashed expansion difficult to implement as national policy. Moreover, the desirability of expansion beyond culturally similar lands into foreign tongues and alien ways, such as Mexico's, has caused historical rifts within the expansionist camp, which by no means speaks with a single voice. Writing in the 1920's and under the influence of the anti-expansionist President Wilson, Weinberg appears to believe expansionist designs along with Manifest Destiny have passed from the American scene. Presumably he would have found a home in the similarly deluded Kennedy administration. Though Weinberg records several glimpses of financial imperialism or "neo-colonialism", the author appears to equate overseas expansion with the presence of occupying military forces - a fatal mistake for assessing 20th century expansionist modes. Despite serious ideological shortcomings, the book remains both factual and informative of the early stages of American expansion, and well worth the read.
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