How the United States Conquered a Continent
Interview with Clement Knox about his book The Scramble for America: How the United States Conquered a Continent. Challenges the conventional narrative of US expansion, arguing it was a deliberate imperial project from its inception. Early American leaders explicitly used the term “empire” and pursued aggressive expansion westwards, funded significantly by land sales and the slave economy. The decline of European powers facilitated this growth, allowing the US to become a transcontinental and Pacific-facing nation. This expansion was central to forging American identity and served as a blueprint for later European imperial endeavours, notably influencing Nazi Germany’s Lebensraum.
See also the episode with Daniel Immerwahr about his book How to Hide an Empire: The History of the Greater United States.