SOb
AR.THUR SCHLESINGER, JR.
led to the redefinition of the American marketplace as the world mar–
ketplace and to the consequent reconstruction of American foreign and
naval policy. Finally, in the nineties, the closing of the frontier and the
onset of a new depression not only remobilized the farmers but alerted
and alarmed the urban businessmen, who in any case were now facing
surplus problems of their own. The result was a national consensus in
support of the expansion of the marketplace, by peaceful means if pos–
sible, by war if necessary. In this process, nations that challenged Amer–
ica's market aspirations came to be perceived as threats to American
freedom. This expansionist compulsion, so deeply rooted in the Amer–
ican economy, committed all American administrations in the twentieth
century, whatever their tactical disagreements, to "the extension of Amer–
ican economic and political power throughout the world." Hence the
war with Spain; hence the First and Second World Wars; hence the
war in Vietnam.
The Roots of the Modern American Empire
is, I think, really two
books. The first is an intensive monographic account of the rise of the
overseas-markets thesis in the American agricultural economy in the
nineteenth century. There is nothing new, of course, in the emphasis
on the importance of foreign trade in American economic development;
but Professor Williams's prodigious and exhausting research in official
records, in personal manuscript collections, in the proceedings of farm–
ers' associations and in agricultural journals makes evident as never be–
fore the extent to which the search for overseas markets was a conscious
and explicit theme in American economic thought. By isolating that
theme and stating it with clarity and power, Professor Williams places a
number of episodes and men in nineteenth-century American history in
interesting new perspective: the monetary and tariff debates, for ex–
ample; the attitudes toward foreign investment in the United States; the
impact of Populism on foreign policy; the role of politicians like Blaine
and McKinley; the implications of Turner's frontier thesis; the confu–
sion of a belief in free markets with a belief in freedom.
This book has also, it must be confessed, some of the traditional
defects of the monograph. The writing is stiff, hammering and tedious;
and the periodic attempts to inject liveliness are singularly unfortunate.
Thus Professor Williams is not satisfied, when he quotes a source, to
write that his characters "said" something; they "snorted" it or "en–
thused" or "shot back." In the ten pages from 297 to 307, for ex–
ample, Milton George "whooped" one sentence, William Ralls Morrison
"vowed" another, Ulysses S. Grant "roared" a third, T. B. Catron
"thundered" his, Grover Cleveland "intoned" his and several others
"cried" theirs. He should consult Fowler on elegant variation.
