In this addition to the esteemed Oxford history series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican–American War, an era of revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. He examines the era's politics but contends that John Quincy Adams and other advocates of public education and economic integration, defenders

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"In Ways and Means, journalist Roger Lowenstein reveals the unlikely story of how Abraham Lincoln used the urgency of financing the Civil War to transform a union of states into one united nation. Through a financial lens, he explores how this second American revolution, led by Lincoln, his cabinet, and his congress, changed the direction of the country"-- Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis: the United...

The bloody 1846-1848 war between the United States and Mexico filled out the shape of the continental United States, forcing Mexico to recognize its loss of Texas and give up the rest of what became the Southwestern United States. Generally people argue that the United States won this war because unlike Mexico it was already a unified nation that commanded the loyalty of its citizens. Focusing on the vivid experiences of ordinary soldiers and civilians,...

Forgotten founder" no more, Alexander Hamilton has become a global celebrity. Millions know his name. Millions imagine knowing the man. But what did he really want for the country? What risks did he run in pursuing those vaulting ambitions? Who tried to stop him? How did they fight? It’s ironic that the Hamilton revival has obscured the man’s most dramatic battles and hardest-won achievements—as well as downplaying unsettling aspects of his...

"This book explains Hamilton's radical ideas in the context of his revolutionary times and in contrast to other revolutionaries, such as Thomas Jefferson, who emerges as the epitome of rural, slave-owning, anti-statist thinkers. This is a book of scholarship, with hundreds of notes and explanations of early American economics and history, but written in a stylish, accessible, narrative style befitting a leading, longtime journalist"--