Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right, Paperback

The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise, affordable works on pivotal topics in American history, society, and politics.

Stephanson explores the origins of Manifest Destiny--the American idea of providential and historical chosenness--and shows how and why it has been invoked over the past three hundred years. He traces the roots of Manifest Destiny from the British settlement of North America and the rise of Puritanism through Woodrow Wilson's efforts to "make the world safe for democracy" and Ronald Reagan's struggle against the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. The result is a remarkable and necessary book about how faith in divinely ordained expansionism has marked the course of American history.

About the Author:

Anders Stephanson, professor of history at Columbia University, is the author of Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy.