Paul Frymer

This book is an informative analysis of the political decision-making that underlay the United States' expansion from east to west in the 19th century. The author wisely stays away from the most familiar storylines and instead focuses fully on the arguments by which legislators defended various policy proposals relating to territorial expansion. It is particularly interesting to learn how strongly they centered around race considerations and fears of racial diversity. The debate on the show more necessity of shipping all emancipated slaves off to tropical colonies is amusing in its naivete, and indeed those policies turned out to be impractical from the start.

The author is a good writer but his style is a bit dry and his attempt to summarize the main points of the book didn't really strike a chord with me. But he does present the main arguments for each viewpoint clearly and provides a nice selection of illustrative quotations for bringing home the ideological presuppositions of each viewpoint. I learned much about US history that I did not know before, so I'm glad that I read this book. show less