Before Manifest Destiny The Contested Expansion of the Early United States

Dipucchio, Nicholas G.

ISBN 10: 081395293X / ISBN 13: 9780813952932

Published by Univ of Virginia Pr, 2025

About this Item

258 pages. 9.00x6.00x1.00 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # x-081395293X

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Before Manifest Destiny The Contested Expansion of the Early United States
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081395293X
• ISBN 13: 9780813952932
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.4 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

How the contours of the United States took shape—and what they might have been

There was nothing predestined about the now-familiar shape of the United States of America. Early visions of what the new country’s borders could encompass included Canadian provinces, Caribbean islands, and even Kamchatka in eastern Russia. In Before Manifest Destiny, Nicholas DiPucchio tells the surprising, dramatically contingent story of the United States’ expansion, focusing in particular on the ultimately unrealized territorial ambitions cherished by many Americans in the early republic.

Between the 1770s and 1820s, American expansionists made efforts to annex Bermuda, Upper Canada, Cuba, and vast swathes of the Pacific Northwest. As DiPucchio shows, however, local populations—from small groups of Caribbean merchants to Indigenous populations to rival imperial powers—contested their efforts, helping define the boundaries of the United States and forcing its leaders to recalibrate their expectations of the nation’s growth. Rather than the inevitable procession it may appear to be in retrospect, the story of early US expansion was in many ways defined by thwarted ambitions and unfulfilled possibilities. Halted in the Atlantic East, the Canadian North, and the Caribbean South, antebellum expansionists eventually declared it their manifest destiny to overspread the West.

About the Author

Nicholas G. DiPucchio is Assistant Professor of History at Oakland University.