We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,589,313.34 | Books Available: 787,113 | Members Online: 237

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea

Seizing Destiny How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea
Author: Richard Kluger

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning social historian Richard Kluger, Seizing Destiny is a sweeping chronicle of how the vast territory of the United States was assembled to accommodate the aspirations of its people—regardless of who objected. It is a remarkable story of how Americans extended their sovereignty from the Atlantic co... more »astline to the mid-Pacific in the first 125 years of their national existence.

America’s surge to dominion was equally admirable and appalling. The nation’s pioneer generations were, to be sure, blessed with remarkable energy, fortitude, and boundless faith in their own prowess. They were also grasping opportunists, ravenous in their hunger to possess the earth, who justified their often brutal aggression by demeaning the humanity of nonwhites.

These visionary nation-builders proclaimed earnestly, if not innocently, their own rectitude to be the force behind the heroic “taming” of the wilderness and saw in this triumph the hand of Providence. Their good fortune was thus transformed into a mission of continental entitlement—their “manifest destiny,” as they began calling it well after the process was under way. Yet declaring it did not make it so. As we see, luck and their foes’ weaknesses played no less a role.

In a compelling drama, vivid with historical detail, we watch three of the most brilliant Founding Fathers—Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams—outfox British, French, and Spanish diplomats to win more than ample boundaries for their new republic. Finesse, however, had little to do with General Andrew Jackson’s Indian-slaughtering and disdain for the Spanish garrison in capturing Florida. Or with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’s bluff and bluster in gaining for the nation a northwest passage to the Pacific. Or with how the singleminded James Polk, devious and manipulative, confected a war with Mexico and thereby amassed more land than any other U.S. President.

We learn why the nation’s most famous acquisition, France’s Louisiana Territory, had little to do with Thomas Jefferson’s foresight and everything to do with Napoleon’s failure to subdue black freedom fighters in the jungles of Haiti. Sam Houston tried vainly to prevent the predictably suicidal defense of the Alamo before he could rally rowdy Texans to win their independence. William Seward, in just one week, overcame political disrepute and convinced a hostile Senate to approve his secret deal with Russia to buy seemingly useless Alaska. And Teddy Roosevelt connived with the Panamanians to win land for the canal that so enhanced America’s economic dominance.

Comprehensive and balanced, Seizing Destiny is a stunning reinterpretation of American history, revealing great accomplishments along with the American tendency to confuse success with heaven-sent entitlement.

ISBN-13: 9780375413414
ISBN-10: 0375413413
Publication Date: 8/7/2007
Pages: 672
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Knopf
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Genres:

History >> Americas >> United States >> General

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea

Loading...