Arthur Power Dudden
Ashgate
Hardback
412
2004
American Empire in the Pacific explores the empire which emerged from the Oregon Treaty of 1846 with Great Britain and the outcome of the Mexican War in 1848. Together they signalled the mastery of the United States over the continent of North America the Pacific Ocean and the ancient civilizations of Asia at last lay within reach. England's East India Company in the 17th and 18th centuries had introduced Asian wares including tea to the American colonists but wars against France and then the struggle for American independence held back expansion by Yankee entrepreneurs until 1783. Thereafter from the Atlantic seaboard American ships began regularly to reach China. Merchants sailors and missionaries motivated toward trade and redemption like the Europeans they met along the way encountered the exotic peoples and cultures of the Pacific. Would-be empire builders projected a manifest destiny without limits. Russian Alaska the native kingdom of Hawai'i Japan Korea Samoa and Spain's Philippine Islands as well as a transcontinental railroad and an isthmian canal acquired strategic significance in American minds in time to outweigh both commerce and conversion.
Ashgate
Hardback
412
2004
American Empire in the Pacific explores the empire which emerged from the Oregon Treaty of 1846 with Great Britain and the outcome of the Mexican War in 1848. Together they signalled the mastery of the United States over the continent of North America the Pacific Ocean and the ancient civilizations of Asia at last lay within reach. England's East India Company in the 17th and 18th centuries had introduced Asian wares including tea to the American colonists but wars against France and then the struggle for American independence held back expansion by Yankee entrepreneurs until 1783. Thereafter from the Atlantic seaboard American ships began regularly to reach China. Merchants sailors and missionaries motivated toward trade and redemption like the Europeans they met along the way encountered the exotic peoples and cultures of the Pacific. Would-be empire builders projected a manifest destiny without limits. Russian Alaska the native kingdom of Hawai'i Japan Korea Samoa and Spain's Philippine Islands as well as a transcontinental railroad and an isthmian canal acquired strategic significance in American minds in time to outweigh both commerce and conversion.