A Post-Exceptionalist Perspective on Early American History

This book argues that early American history is best understood as the story of a settler-colonial supplanting societya society intent on a vast land grab of American Indian space and driven by a logic of elimination and a genocidal imperative to rid the new white settler living space of its existing Indigenous inhabitants. Challenging the still strongly held notion of American history as somehow exceptional or unique, it locates the history of the United States and its colonial antecedents as a central part ofrather than an exception tothe emerging global histories of imperialism, colonialism, and genocide. It also explores early American history in an imperial, transnational, and global frame, showing how the precedent of the North American West and its colonial trope of Indian wars were used by like-minded American and European expansionists to inspire and legitimate other imperial-colonial adventures from the late-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries.

Offers an accessible survey of early American history, rooted in the frameworks of imperialism, colonialism, and genocide Foregrounds imperial, transnational, and global histories as necessary contexts for understanding early America as a vast settler-colonial project Shows how the North American precedent and its colonial trope of Indian wars was used to inspire and legitimate other late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century imperial-colonial projects

Autorentext
Carroll P. Kakel III (Pete) is a research historian and a lecturer at The Johns Hopkins University, USA.

Klappentext
Challenging the still widely held notion that American history is somehow exceptional or unique, this book argues that early America is best understood as a settler-colonial supplanting society. As Kakel shows, this society undertook the violent theft of Indigenous land and resources on a massive scale, and was driven by a logic of elimination and a genocidal imperative to rid the new white settler living space of its existing Indigenous inhabitants.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: Explaining Early America.- 2. Neo-European Wests: Frontiers of Empire, 16071754.- 3. America's First West: The Trans-Appalachian West, 17541815.- 4. America's Farther West: The Trans-Mississippi West, 18151890.- 5. The Global West: Other Wests and Indian Wars, 18901919.- 6. The Global West: Other Wests and Indian Wars, 19191945.- 7. Conclusion: Understanding Early America.