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This book argues that early American history is best understood as the story of a settler-colonial supplanting society-a 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 of-rather than an exception to-the 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.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Explaining Early America.- 2. Neo-European Wests: Frontiers of Empire, 1607-1754.- 3. America's First West: The Trans-Appalachian West, 1754-1815.- 4. America's Farther West: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1815-1890.- 5. The Global West: Other Wests and Indian Wars, 1890-1919.- 6. The Global West: Other Wests and Indian Wars, 1919-1945.- 7. Conclusion: Understanding Early America.
About the author
Carroll P. Kakel III (“Pete”) is a research historian and a lecturer at The Johns Hopkins University, USA.
Summary
This book argues that early American history is best understood as the story of a settler-colonial supplanting society—a 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 of—rather than an exception to—the 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.
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“This is a valuable piece of literature that could promote stimulating discussions in undergraduate and graduate courses alike. … this book makes for especially interesting reading at a time when US legislators are pushing for recognition of the Armenian genocide and criticizing the Chinese government’s well- documented violations of human rights among its Uyghur population.” (Andrew A. Szarejko, American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 44 (3), 2020)
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"This is a valuable piece of literature that could promote stimulating discussions in undergraduate and graduate courses alike. ... this book makes for especially interesting reading at a time when US legislators are pushing for recognition of the Armenian genocide and criticizing the Chinese government's well- documented violations of human rights among its Uyghur population." (Andrew A. Szarejko, American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 44 (3), 2020)
