The Voldemort of Imperial History: Rethinking Empire and US History

Abstract

Frederick Jackson Turner (1861–1932), the American historian known for devising the “Frontier Thesis,” said that the United States was “an empire” and that expansion was the driving force of the nation's history (Colley 2006:373). Despite this assertion by so prominent an American intellectual, Colley points out that US imperialism is generally still only seen to operate in a very “narrow” sense, namely “in terms of overseas activities” (Colley 2006:373). One consequence of this historical myopia is that the nation, at least until the late nineteenth-century conflict with Spain, seems to have escaped association with empire. This paper examines how and why this is the case. It does so by focusing upon a method of expansion often overlooked when examining US history, namely that the nation attained a great deal of its territory not just by warfare but also through purchase or lease. Thus, this work suggests that the United States' association with empire is far more profound than many acknowledge. In doing so, it also draws attention to an understudied colonial process that has profound implications for Westphalian conceptions of sovereignty, empire, and international order.