80 Quotes by Greg Grandin

In other words, the United States won independence from Great Britain in a revolutionary war that was, among other reasons, fought to deny Great Britain the right to establish a western border; then, once independence was recognized by the Treaty of Paris establishing a western border, the United States cited earlier grants issued by Great Britain to hop-skip over that border.

Having been born into a large litter and raised, as one republican put it, in a shared New World household, Spanish American nations were socialized at an early age. The United States, in contrast, was created lonely and raised thinking it was one of a kind.

Taking Texas, Adams feared, would lock in the worldview that Jackson represented. The country was already fighting what Adams considered a perpetual war on Native Americans, a crusade that Jacksonians used to create a racist solidarity among whites and to beat back demands for a more robust state capable of addressing social problems.

The overseas frontier—wars in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Haiti—acted as a prism, refracting the color line abroad back home. In each military occupation and prolonged counterinsurgency they fought, southerners could replay the dissonance of the Confederacy again and again. They could fight in the name of the loftiest ideals—liberty, valor, self-sacrifice, camaraderie—while putting down people of color.

The Confederate flag stopped flying as the pennant of reconciliation, the joining of the southern military tradition to northern establishment might to spread Americanism abroad. It now was the banner of those who felt that the establishment had sacrificed that tradition, "stabbed it in the back." The battle flag became the banner not of a specific Lost Cause but of all of white supremacy's lost causes.

All told, U.S. allies in Central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands, and drove millions into exile.

President George H. W. Bush soon launched Operation Desert Shield, sending an enormous contingent of troops to Saudi Arabia. But once there, what exactly were they to do? Contain Iraq? Attack and liberate Kuwait? Drive on to Baghdad and depose Saddam? There was no clear consensus among foreign policy advisers or analysts.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic don't just share an island, Hispaniola, but a history, one that includes all the signal events that went into creating the modern world: Columbus, conquest, genocide, slavery, imperial war, revolution, and U.S. counterinsurgencies and military occupations.

By June 1974, Treasury Secretary George Shultz was already suggesting that rising oil prices could result in a 'highly advantageous mutual bargain' between the United States and petroleum-producing countries in the Middle East.