Habits of Empire : A History of American Expansion

This book examines the long, continuous history of US territorial aggression, mostly vis-a-vis other Western powers. The detail in these areas is excellent, detailing the wrangling between different European powers (and eventually Mexico) and the US and how a combination of subtle invasions and outright war was the drumbeat of American growth. Nugent has a weird fixation on population growth, which given that the US looks like essentially every Western European country of the time from that perspective doesn't lend much credence to that being a uniquely American trait. He does do a good job documenting the overthrow of Hawaii and the Philippines as well. However. Native Americans are barely mentioned until chapter 8, and even then passed over after a few pages. You'll see here repeated long discredited myths of Indian disappearance and the inevitability of their decline in power, marshalling essentially no evidence to support that conclusion. Taken as a whole, I look at this book as a great version of the history I was taught as a kid - overly narrow but rigorous in what it focuses on. If you keep that in mind I can highly recommend it