An Independent Empire: Diplomacy & War in the Making of the United States

by Michael S. Kochin, Michael Taylor

Overview

Foreign policies and diplomatic missions, combined with military action, were the driving forces behind the growth of the early United States. In an era when the Old and New Worlds were subject to British, French, and Spanish imperial ambitions, the new republic had limited diplomatic presence and minimal public credit. It was vulnerable to hostile forces in every direction. The United States could not have survived, grown, or flourished without the adoption of prescient foreign policies, or without skillful diplomatic operations.

An Independent Empire shows how foreign policy and diplomacy constitute a truly national story, necessary for understanding the history of the United States. In this lively and well-written book, episodes in American history—such as the writing and ratification of the Constitution, Henry Clay’s advocacy of an American System, Pinckney’s Treaty with Spain, and the visionary but absurd Congress of Panama—are recast as elemental aspects of United States foreign and security policy.

An Independent Empire tells the stories of the people who defined the early history of America’s international relationships. Throughout the book are brief, entertaining vignettes of often-overlooked intellectuals, spies, diplomats, and statesmen whose actions and decisions shaped the first fifty years of the United States. More than a dozen bespoke maps illustrate that the growth of the early United States was as much a geographical as a political or military phenomenon.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472054404
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	01/24/2020
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Michael S. Kochin is Professor Extraordinarius in the School of Political Science, Government, and International Relations at Tel Aviv University. Michael Taylor is a Visiting Fellow at the British Library Eccles Centre for American Studies, 2019-21.

Table of Contents

Introduction: An Independent Empire 1

1 The British and the Problems of American Empire 7

2 Foreign Alliance and the Revolutionary War 26

3 Peace and the Treaty of Paris 43

4 Foreign Policy and the United States Constitution 58

5 The United States and the French Revolution, 1789-1794 75

6 Three Treaties 92

7 Saint Domingue and the Quasi-War, 1797-1800 112

8 The Purchase and the Pirates, 1800-1805 131

9 Embargo 146

10 The War of 1812 160

11 American Progress at Spanish Expense, 1815-1819 182

12 Monsters and the American System 200

13 The Monroe Doctrine 214

14 The Congress of Panama 227

Conclusion 243

Notes 249

Bibliography 275

Index 289

Editorial Reviews

"The two Michaels are very readable and make a very good point: the common project uniting the factions in American politics was empire, that is, taking over the entire continent. The vastness of the ambition and the seriousness with which it was pursued make America the greatest modern political enterprise. Since we are now paralyzed by complexity, we should learn how energetic and restless Americans once were."
— Law Liberty

Law & Liberty - Titus Techera

"[An Independent Empire] offers the reader a well-researched historical/political narrative. It provides a very helpful and necessary supplement to political accounts of the colonial and founding eras that focus on the role of ideas."
— Voegelin Review

Voegelin Review - Luigi Bradizza

This is a fine account of American diplomacy and war in the first fifty years after independence for both undergraduates and a popular audience.”
—Kevin R C Gutzman, Western Connecticut State University

“Engagingly written, a real ‘page-turner,’ clipped and energetic in its narrative, confident in its opinions, and sensible in its conclusions. Its approach is refreshingly traditional—focusing on individual statesmen and telling political history, quite adroitly—but not insensitive to modern concerns, for example about slavery or about religious and ethnic minorities. It tells the story of American growth and expansion as neither inevitable nor horrible, but as a consequence of numerous choices, some wise and just, others ill-advised or nefarious.”
—James R Stoner, Louisiana State University

“America’s bold experiment in republican self-government could only succeed if the new nation could hold its own as An Independent Empire in a revolutionary world of empires in conflict. Michael Kochin and Michael Taylor’s engaging account of the first half-century of U.S. foreign policy is a welcome addition to the literature on the geopolitics of American nation-making.”
—Peter S. Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Professor, Emeritus, University of Virginia

From the Publisher