Overview

For seven years after the Declaration of Independence the United States had no internationally recognized boundaries and no defined sovereign territory. It was more an idea than a country. Then in 1783 the United States began to expand at a staggering rate, adding territory equivalent to the landmass of modern Bulgaria each year, every year, for eighty-four years. By 1867— less than a century after its founding—the United States laid claim to some 3.6 million square miles of land on the North American continent. How did it happen? In The Scramble for America, historian Clement Knox uncovers the history of these epic years. It is the story of how the United States exploded out of its original confines on the Eastern seaboard, breaching the Appalachians, the Great Plains, the Rockies and extending its reach to the Rio Grande, the Florida Keys, and the Bering Strait, eventually straddling two oceans and commanding some of the most valuable lands on the planet. In vivid prose he recounts how a cast of settlers, prospectors, and soldiers, hungry for land, motivated by visions of gold, and inspired by the rhetoric of national greatness, spread out across the North American continent, making history as they advanced and bringing violence and dispossession in their wake. The principal currents of American history are all interwoven with these years of conquest: the origins of the revolution, the tragedy of the Native Americans, the spread of slavery, and the crisis of the union that culminated in the Civil War. Those turbulent years of rampaging continental expansion in the nineteenth century teed up the United States for global supremacy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The creation of the continental United States was one of the great events in modern history and continues to shape our world. Published to mark the 250th anniversary of American Independence, this book offers a retelling of its national history like no other.

Full Product Details

9780008447274

Table of Contents

Reviews

PRAISE FOR STRANGE ANTICS: ‘Clement Knox has mastered the art of reader seduction with his intriguing and expertly woven web of gripping stories and insights. Strange Antics will hold the reader in its thrall’ Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five ‘Erudite yet engaging … Though ambitious in its scope it is endlessly surprising in the individual stories it unearths. I found this Pandora’s box of sexual mores through the ages both thought-provoking and hugely entertaining’ Cathy Newman ‘Big and bold … His history of seduction examines a variety of narratives from scandalous memoirs to legal procedure … Impressive … There is much to praise here’ Sunday Times ‘A work of narrative nonfiction à la mode. Each chapter focuses on a single individual … Their lives and work are then used to elucidate the grander historical narrative … A blistering finale, drawing together themes of sexual politics, economics, law and the ordinary human desire for love and companionship into a vision of our present condition’ Times ‘Seduction is the subject of films and fiction, legal cases and human resources headaches – and yet its history has never been written. Knox rectifies this omission with this absorbing account … Erudite and above all entertaining’ Tatler ‘There is much to enjoy in Clement Knox’s ambitious first work … He writes with passion and insight.’ i Newspaper ‘A capacious new history of seduction … Produces a clutch of vivid biographical portraits and offers a pacey introduction to some canonical texts.’ Guardian ‘Rich history … Full of punchy political insight … Satisfying and interesting … And full of share-worthy anecdotes.’ Daily Telegraph ‘Fascinating …Knox is a natural biographer with a flair for unveiling startling anecdotes with evident relish … Exhilarating’ New Statesman

Author Information

Clement Knox was born in Hong Kong in 1989. He has a B.A. in Modern History from the University of Oxford and an M.A. in International Relations and Economics from Johns Hopkins University. He currently lives in London, where he works for Waterstones as a nonfiction buyer. Strange Antics will be his first book.

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