A Nation Without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910

by Steven Hahn Narrated by Barry Press

Overview

In this monumental story of American imperial conquest and capitalist development, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Steven Hahn dismantles the conventional histories of the nineteenth century and offers a perspective that promises to be as enduring as it is controversial. It begins and ends in Mexico and, throughout, is internationalist in orientation. It challenges the political narrative of “sectionalism,” emphasizing the national footing of slavery and the struggle between the northeast and Mississippi Valley for continental supremacy. It places the Civil War in the context of many domestic rebellions against state authority, including those of Native Americans. It fully incorporates the trans-Mississippi west, suggesting the importance of the Pacific to the imperial vision of political leaders and of the west as a proving ground for later imperial projects overseas. It reconfigures the history of capitalism, insisting on the centrality of state formation and slave emancipation to its consolidation. It identifies a sweeping era of “reconstructions” in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that simultaneously laid the foundations for corporate liberalism and social democracy. 

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2017 - AudioFile

Steven Hahn’s sweeping history of the United States in the age of expansion is a compelling narrative, and one that deserves a wide audience despite its flaws as an audiobook production. “Less is more” should be the mantra for all narrators of long, serious works of history—the steady trot rather than a full canter. Barry Press has a pleasing voice and is in many ways an appealing narrator. But he does tend to overemphasize. Worse, his mimicry of regional voices and historical bluster is just plain embarrassing. The story of America is a story of constantly changing borders, and Hahn has written an important work of history that speaks to our own divided time, as well as to the fractured eighteenth century. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

08/29/2016
This hefty and comprehensive survey (the latest volume in Eric Foner’s Penguin History of the United States series) from Hahn, a professor of history at NYU and Pulitzer-winner for A Nation Under Our Feet, analyzes 80 years of American history, examining the massive social, political, and economic changes that occurred between 1830 and 1910. Hahn is an expert on the emergence of the U.S. as a world power, and he offers a fresh take on the years he covers, with some of his departures important, if not unprecedented. He portrays the U.S. as an imperial nation from its beginning. Native Americans and African-Americans play a large role in his narrative, which is centered on the Mississippi Valley, not the South or North. He emphasizes the development of capitalistic enterprise and commerce as well as the nation’s place on the North American continent and in the world. Given Hahn’s unimpeachable body of knowledge, readers can be confident that they’re getting the most current understanding of the history of the U.S. This is a scholar’s work written with the author’s eye on other scholars, but it’s one that bears reading by all serious students of the American past. (Nov.)

From the Publisher

A massive and masterly account of America’s political and economic transformation between 1830 and 1910 . . . Hahn describes his book as telling ‘a familiar story in an unfamiliar way.’ It is much more than that. Attempting a synthesis of a century’s worth of American history is a daunting task. Writing one as provocative and learned . . . as this one is a triumph, nothing less.”—David Oshinsky, The Washington Post

“Rarely has there been a more forthright challenge to old stereotypes than in Steven Hahn’s A Nation Without Borders, his distinguished volume in the Penguin History of the United States on the period 1830-1910 . . . rich in insight on the making of the US during a crucial period.”—Peter Clarke, Financial Times

“Vivid detail . . .  A Nation Without Borders is a detailed, dense . . . His chronicle is breathtaking in its scope and brilliant in its subtle and original conceptualization of the nation during this period. It is often affecting, too, especially in its descriptions of labor activism . . . There is a cautionary tale here for our own time.”—John Stauffer, The Wall Street Journal

“In his comprehensive A Nation Without Borders, Hahn . . . provides the most sweeping indictment to date of the American appetite for conquest.”— The New York Times Book Review

"Capacious [and] buzzing with ideas."—The Boston Globe

“Brisk and thought-provoking . . .  Readable and illuminating, and Hahn's thesis will lead many writers, students, and history buffs to rethink what they have learned from a new perspective.”—The Weekly Standard

“This breathtakingly original ‘history of the United States’—which begins and ends in Mexico, naturally—strikes like lightning. It illuminates the complex sweep of forces that came together in the decades surrounding the Civil War to forge the American nation. Only Hahn could have written such a revelatory book.” —Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"This magisterial and authoritative monograph is a must-read for anyone interested in U.S. history." —Library Journal (starred review)

"A compelling examination of the long, divisive road to America's emergence, in 1919, as 'the most formidable power in the world.'" —Kirkus

“Given Hahn’s unimpeachable body of knowledge, readers can be confident that they’re getting the most current understanding of the history of the U.S….bears reading by all serious students of the American past.” —Publishers Weekly

“A bold reinterpretation of the American nineteenth century, this tour de force bristles with fresh insights gained from often surprising vantage points... It confirms   Hahn’s position as one of the most important interpreters of the American experience. A must read for anyone interested in the history of the United States.” —Sven Beckert, author of Empire of Cotton

“Steven Hahn has given us an ambitious and marvelously grounded rethinking of our history during eighty of its most turbulent, violent and creative years. It challenges some of our most fundamental predilections and reimagines how the nation we know came to be. It is guaranteed to rearrange your mental furniture.” —Elliott West, author of The Contested Plains

 

Library Journal

★ 09/01/2016
Esteemed historian Hahn (history, New York Univ.; winner of the Bancroft and Pulitzer Prizes for A Nation Under Our Feet) provocatively asserts that from its founding, the U.S. government has been determined to construct an empire. Using that framework, the author presents the Civil War as one of the major examples of the central government's imperial ambitions. The conquest of the South was soon followed by the subjugation of the Trans-Mississippi West. The expansion of its borders to the Pacific Ocean did not satisfy U.S. imperialistic desires, thus it turned to distant locales throughout the Pacific such as the Philippines. The emphasis on the Pacific is significant as many historians have been recently contextualizing U.S. development within the "Atlantic World." While Hahn includes key events from that sphere, he also demonstrates that myopically focusing on a limited geographic region results in key parts of the story being missed. The point is emphasized by providing background to the rise, and ultimate check, of U.S. global hegemony through the exploration of similar revolutions in other countries during the same period, most notably in Mexico. VERDICT This magisterial and authoritative monograph is a must-read for anyone interested in U.S. history. [See Prepub Alert, 5/2/16.]—John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

FEBRUARY 2017 - AudioFile

Steven Hahn’s sweeping history of the United States in the age of expansion is a compelling narrative, and one that deserves a wide audience despite its flaws as an audiobook production. “Less is more” should be the mantra for all narrators of long, serious works of history—the steady trot rather than a full canter. Barry Press has a pleasing voice and is in many ways an appealing narrator. But he does tend to overemphasize. Worse, his mimicry of regional voices and historical bluster is just plain embarrassing. The story of America is a story of constantly changing borders, and Hahn has written an important work of history that speaks to our own divided time, as well as to the fractured eighteenth century. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2016-08-25
A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian reveals America’s evolution into nationhood.In a revisionist view of 19th-century America, Hahn (History/New York Univ.; The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom, 2009, etc.) examines eight decades of politics and culture punctuated by the 1860s conflict he calls the War of Rebellion. That war, he writes, was one among many other rebellions involving Indians, abolitionists, slaves, and disgruntled political groups that questioned federal authority. Hahn’s expansive, authoritative history synthesizes published works that comprise his 50-page bibliography and draws as well upon archival material. He mounts a persuasive argument that nationhood was not a concept shared by the many disparate states and territories, nor by its politicians. Although the Colonies broke from British imperialism, empire, not nationhood, served as a compelling economic and political model, as the country stretched west to California and south to Mexico, with tentacles into the Pacific and Indian oceans. In the Caribbean basin, Cuba was coveted for annexation. Hahn identifies roiling political tensions between the two major parties. Whigs, who evolved into Republicans and maintained strongest support in the Northeast, Midwest, and urban South, focused on developing the domestic economy and favored the exercise of federal power. Democrats, supported by Southern slaveholders, “stood for supremacy of state and local authority” and favored “aggressive geographical expansionism.” Indeed, Hahn says that the political identity of the South “developed alongside theories of empowerment that focused on states and households.” The author details the “costliest, most divisive, and most politically vexing” war with Mexico that resulted in the acquisition of Texas and the dubious purchase of the Louisiana Territory, which Thomas Jefferson had no constitutional authority to buy. Abraham Lincoln dared to articulate the “language of nation” at a time when states had affinity, at most, to a region. Hahn’s prose is sometimes burdened by overly long, clause-laden sentences, but his first-rate scholarship will appeal to knowledgeable readers. A compelling examination of the long, divisive road to America’s emergence, in 1919, as “the most formidable power in the world.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171332433
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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Chapter One
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Excerpted from "A Nation Without Borders"
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Copyright © 2017 Steven Hahn.
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