A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830–1910

This hefty and comprehensive survey (the latest volume in Eric Foner’s Penguin History of the United States series) from Hahn, a professor of history at NYU and Pulitzer-winner for A Nation Under Our Feet, analyzes 80 years of American history, examining the massive social, political, and economic changes that occurred between 1830 and 1910. Hahn is an expert on the emergence of the U.S. as a world power, and he offers a fresh take on the years he covers, with some of his departures important, if not unprecedented. He portrays the U.S. as an imperial nation from its beginning. Native Americans and African-Americans play a large role in his narrative, which is centered on the Mississippi Valley, not the South or North. He emphasizes the development of capitalistic enterprise and commerce as well as the nation’s place on the North American continent and in the world. Given Hahn’s unimpeachable body of knowledge, readers can be confident that they’re getting the most current understanding of the history of the U.S. This is a scholar’s work written with the author’s eye on other scholars, but it’s one that bears reading by all serious students of the American past. (Nov.)