The Empire for Liberty

An Empire for Liberty examines the history of the United States from the Declaration of Independence to the Civil War less than a century later. The book opens in the aftermath of the American victory over the British in 1776: an era that witnessed the first strains of maintaining independence, and the lively debate that led to a democratic federal constitution under Washington's presidency.

Once independence had been achieved, expansion proceeded rapidly: by 1860 the original thirteen states had increased to thirty-four. An Empire for Liberty provides an assessment of such territorial gains as the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, examining their effects on the Federation as a whole. It shows that, for all their hopes, the American peoples were, in practice, bitterly divided in their efforts to establish the democratic republic. Tensions which had been channeled against foreign rule during the battle for independence now had to be addressed within the new United States.

This volume balances grand overview with insights into the personalities that shaped America's history. It describes Jefferson's two great presidential terms and their sequence in the turmoil of Jacksonian democracy, the first great drive to the West, the Mexican War and the brief independence of Texas. Throughout, the account considers the parallel and dependent history of the black slave population, and the struggles of the American Indian peoples to retain their lands and culture. Particular attention is given to the evolution of the distinctive culture of the South, with an explanation of the polarization between Union and Confederate States. The book closes with descent into open conflict, and a vivid retelling of the War Between the States.

Esmond Wright is a graduate of the universities of Durham in England and of Virginia in the United States (where in 1940 he received his degree from Franklin D. Roosevelt). After serving in the British Eighth Army in World War II, he pursued an academic career, teaching at the universities of Glasgow, London, Yale, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Ohio State. From 1970 to 1983 he was director of the Institute of US Studies at the University of London.