Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion

In this compelling, controversial history, Nugent, an author (Into the West) and retired history professor, contends that the U.S. ""has created three empires during its history,"" beginning with the march West, then the ""offshore"" acquisition of Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean territories, and the present era of ""global/virtual"" empiricism. Nugent's thorough chronicle peels back Thomas Jefferson's idea of an ""empire for liberty"" (which ""rings just as true and right to Americans today"") to find that high ideals do little to curb the aggression, deceit, cruelty and hypocrisy that have long characterized empire-buidling. Nugent spends most of his time examining America's achievement of Manifest Destiny, swallowing up Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Oregon, California, New Mexico and all points in between. Corrections, like the ""imperfect pullback"" of FDR's good neighbor policy, lead to the Cold War and, ultimately, to today's American empire, an expansion of power rather than territory. Covering a lot of ground in a short space, Nugent handles the relationships among governments and government players with clear, straightforward prose and easy-to-follow analogies: ""American procurement of the Hawaiian Islands may be thought of as filibuster in very slow motion."" Challenging some of America's most cherished ideas about itself, Nugent exposes an unsettling reality that outsiders-i.e., victims of American expansion-see all too well.