The second volume of The Cambridge History of America and the World examines how the United States rose to great power status in the nineteenth century and how the rest of the world has shaped the United States. Mixing top-down and bottom-up perspectives, insider and outsider views, cultural, social, political, military, environmental, legal, technological, and other veins of analysis, it places the United States, Indigenous nations, and their peoples in the context of a rapidly integrating world. Specific topics addressed in the volume include nation and empire building, inter-Indigenous relations, settler colonialism, slavery and statecraft, the Mexican-American War, global integration, the antislavery international, the global dimensions of the Civil War, overseas empire-building, state formation, international law, global capitalism, border-crossing movement politics, technology, health, the environment, immigration policy, missionary endeavors, mobility, tourism, expatriation, cultural production, colonial intimacies, borderlands, the liberal North Atlantic, US-African relations, Islamic world encounters, the US island empire, the greater Caribbean world, and transimperial entanglements.

‘Let me be clear from the start: this is a wonderful collection….The fluidity of interpretation, conceptual precision, clarity of the exposition, and efficiency of the analysis is excellent…. It is a stimulating and engaging volume, full of interest, insight, and impressive synthesis.’

Stephen Tuffnell Source: H-Diplo