The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500–2000 (review)

Abstract

The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000. By Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton. (New York: Penguin, 2005. Pp. xxiv, 520. Paper, $16.00.)Reviewed by Samuel WatsonFred Anderson and Andrew Cayton set out to probe grand of American history, in which liberty-loving Americans go to war only to defend themselves against unprovoked threats, in order to explore the ambiguous and ironic relationship between war and freedom in making of North America (xxxiii) and rise of United States to global power. They question social, political, economic, and ethnocultural realities of republicanism, popular idealization of a stateless advance by settlers, and racist Fort Apache syndrome, so common in Hollywood, in which small bands of heroic Americans turn back faceless hordes of Indians, Vietnamese Communists, or whomever, without serious inquiry into how Americans got there in first place. In doing so, authors provide a historians' look at American empire, demonstrating its general similarity to other empires, a crucial step in deconstruction of American exceptionalism. Rejecting theoretical statements and generalizations (xxi) in favor of employing individuals representative of main currents of their eras, authors' intended audience appears to be general reading public, perhaps particularly those who so avidly consume history of battles and campaigns. The Dominion of War demands evaluation philosophically, historiographically, methodologically, and politically.Philosophically, authors present a story historians can all enjoy: full of contingency, agency (though they avoid term), irony (lots of irony), and plenty of unintended consequences. They clearly demonstrate connections between causes of American wars, and between wars and postwar political regimes. This may not be new to anyone who teaches American survey: The Dominion of War is a synthesis that breaks little new ground in research and interpretation within individual chronological periods. Yet integration of war and peace, war and politics, is something of which historians as well as history buffs need reminding, and The Dominion of War does so without slathering on operational details that distract buffs and put off historians.Historiographically, a few points really stand out for period of early republic: emphasis on continuities between British colonial and American republican (also discussed in plenary at last year's SHEAR conference), and argument that War of 1812 was an imperialist military adventure (421) like war with Mexico and Spanish-American War. As sympathetic as I am to interpretations emphasizing borderlands and expansion, as much as I agree with authors that these three wars deserve to escape shadow of Revolution, Civil War, and World Wars, I doubt that expansion beyond Great Lakes into Upper Canada was United States' most important objective in 1812 (231). It certainly was not dominant focus of executive policy, of congressional vote to declare war, or of military operations. However popular among public, it was a means to an end - compelling Britain to end its maritime depredations - as J. C. A. Stagg demonstrated a quarter of a century ago. The War of 1812 defeated armed resistance to white in Old Northwest and South, but this was not whole story.Methodologically, Cayton and Anderson provide a parallel narrative for nineteenth century, with a chapter on Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and discussion of Mexico under Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz in chapter that follows. But reader is usually left to draw his or her own conclusions; apart from observing that two nations' political cultures unfolded in different contexts and produced different outcomes (247), they present little in way of signposting. …