Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea

by Richard Kluger

Within 91 years of its creation as a fragile republic without a working government (or even a plan for one), a professional army, or any money in its treasury, the United States amassed a transcontinental domain of 3.7 million square miles, making it the world’s fourth largest nation. No other country or sovereign power has ever grown so big so fast or become so rich and so powerful. Now, for the first time in a single volume, Richard Kluger chronicles this remarkable achievement in a compelling narrative without flinching from the moral lapses of the victors.

Seizing Destiny is a sweeping chronicle of how the vast territory of the United States was assembled to accommodate the aspirations of its people regardless of who objected. It is a remarkable story of how Americans extended their sovereignty from the Atlantic coastline to the mid-Pacific in a surge to dominion that was equally admirable and appalling. The nation’s pioneer generations were, to be sure, blessed with remarkable energy, fortitude, and boundless faith in their own prowess. They were also grasping opportunists, ravenous in their hunger to possess the earth, who justified their sometimes brutal aggression by demeaning the humanity of the nonwhites they encountered in or imported to the New World.

These visionary nation-builders proclaimed earnestly, if not quite so innocently, their own rectitude as the force behind the heroic taming of the wilderness and saw in this triumph the hand of Providence. Their good fortune in coming upon this vast, fertile virgin land was thus transformed into a mission of continental entitlement – their “manifest destiny,” as they began calling it well after the process was under way. Yet declaring it their God-given blessing did not make it so. As we see, luck and their foes’ collective weaknesses played no less a role.

In a compelling drama, vivid with humanizing detail, we watch three of the most brilliant Founding Fathers – Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams – outmaneuver British, French, and Spanish diplomats in Paris to gain far broader boundaries for the new republic than their European adversaries had desired. Finesse, however, had little to do with General Andrew Jackson’s Indian-slaughtering and disdain for the feeble Spanish garrison in capturing Florida. Or with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’s bluff and bluster in gaining for the nation a northwest passage to the Pacific. Or with how the single-minded James Polk, as devious and manipulative as he was bold and resolute, confected a war with Mexico and thereby amassed more land than any other U.S. President.

We learn why the nation’s most celebrated acquisition, France’s Louisiana Territory, had little to do with Thomas Jefferson’s vision and everything to do with Napoleon Bonaparte’s failure to subdue black freedom fighters in the jungles of Haiti. We learn how Sam Houston tried vainly to prevent the predictably suicidal defense of the Alamo before he could rally rowdy Texans to win their independence. And how William Seward, in just one frenetic week, overcame political disrepute and converted a hostile U.S. Senate to approve his secret deal with tsarist Russia to buy the seemingly useless wasteland of Alaska. And how coyly Teddy Roosevelt connived with Panamanian rebels to gain control over a strip of jungle for a great canal to enhance America’s economic growth.

Comprehensive and balanced, Seizing Destiny is an eye-opening reinterpretation of American history, revealing great accomplishments along with a national tendency to confuse good fortune with pretensions of moral superiority.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Americana, American

649 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Richard Kluger is an American social historian and novelist who, after working as a New York journalist and publishing executive, turned in mid-career to writing books that have won wide critical acclaim. His two best known works are Simple Justice, considered the definitive account of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision outlawing racially segregated public schools, and Ashes to Ashes, a critical history of the cigarette industry and its lethal toll on smokers, which won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.

Born in Paterson, N.J., Kluger grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Princeton University, where he chaired The Daily Princetonian. As a young journalist, he wrote and edited for The Wall Street Journal, the pre-Murdoch New York Post and Forbes magazine, and became the last literary editor of the New York Herald Tribune and its literary supplement, Book Week. When the Tribune folded, Kluger entered the book industry, rising to executive editor of Simon and Schuster, editor-in-chief of Atheneum, and publisher of Charterhouse Books.

Moved by the cultural upheavals sweeping across the U.S., Kluger left publishing and devoted five years to writing Simple Justice, which The Nation hailed as “a monumental accomplishment” and the Harvard Law Review termed “a major contribution to our understanding of the Supreme Court.” It was a finalist for the National Book Award, as was Kluger’s second nonfiction work, The Paper: The Life and Death of the New York Herald Tribune. It was followed by Ashes to Ashes and three other well received works of history,
Seizing Destiny , about the relentless expansion of America’s territorial boundaries; The Bitter Waters of Medicine Creek, about a tragic clash between white settlers and tribal natives in territorial Washington, and Indelible Ink, about publisher John Peter Zenger and the origins of press freedom in America.

Of his seven novels, the most widely read were Members of the Tribe, warmly praised by the Chicago Tribune said, and The Sheriff of Nottingham, which Time called “richly imagined and beautifully written.” He also co-authored two novels with his wife Phyllis, a fiber artist and herself the author of two books on needlework design. The Klugers live in Berkeley.

Reviews

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

A work that should be required reading for up-and-coming Americans, Seizing Destiny is a welcome, iconoclastic, myth-busting look at our forebears' outright rapacity, criminal behavior, and political shenanigizing that will make you think twice about us being God's Favored Nation and the recipient of every blessing ever.
The volume is vast and the level of detail surprising. In fact, a reader might be a little put off to find that this is mostly a work of diplomatic/political history, more the former, even. Be sure, there are good sections on the wholesale slaughter of the indigenous population of North America, but less than you would want, probably my biggest (and only) criticism is just this, that little space is given over to Indian removal and such. The bulk of the book focuses on periods of negotiations for territory, taken in swathes: USA vs England for the northern borders post-Revolution; obligatory stuff like the Louisiana Purchase; sheer heinous criminality in Texas vs Mexico and Polk's sheer criminality in filling out the continent. There's good bits on Alaska and Hawaii, too. Again, with the exception of the US war with Mexico, this is largely a diplomatic history, with a fine eye for detail and no sympathy for our moral-less predecessors who would outright lie and thieve to secure lands other people happened to be living on.

[Roopa Prabhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

USA with its belief in "manifest destiny" has accomplished what it has. The ocean to ocean expansion of the behemoth on the back of firm belief in its destiny is a story worth listening to. The expansion via timely diplomacy my preying on weakness of the other party, squatting and eventual land grab, playing false victim hood card to wage war for land grab and false pretence of standing for independence then eventual subjugation of the local people, make ones understand the arrogance and current behaviour of the United States of America.

Love the ending of this book
They cannot sustain their primacy by claiming entitlement to master abroad and continuing to neglect the social pathogens stalking their homeland.
Destiny has never been fond of lingering in one place, or favouring one people, forever.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thankfully neither nowhere near as jingoistic as its title arguably suggests nor as self-righteous as bits of its introduction, this is a thoroughly fascinating look at American expansion (its so-called "Manifest Destiny"), both geographical and, later, economic, that also serves as a more general history of the United States. Very highly recommended.

[Curt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written book in that it ties seemingly disparate events together across the centuries. The overarching theme of expansion is brought to life from generation to generation. Something that I found particularly enjoyable is how the author was able to show how different figures were central to different eras. For example,the author provided letters and diary entries as well as showed how different protégés picked up their mentor’s banner a generation later and used their arguments again over new issues.

The author does not flinch from some of the less savory aspects of America’s continental expansion. Nor, did I have the feeling that I was reading one of those books that passes judgement based on prevailing attitudes in this era against his subjects actions. I was relieved to avoid that feeling.

Reading this book opened my eyes to deeper levels of understanding of politics and for that I am grateful. The author provided countless examples of executive and legislative battles, consensus-building, foreign support, subterfuge, and more dealings that you aren’t privy to in textbooks or overviews. As someone who has taken an active disinterest in politics to this point this book surprisingly piqued my interest due to the author’s portrayal of how it actually works as opposed to the false impression that contemporary news media and the educational system have shown me.

[Frank Ogden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book that traces the development of the USA as a land mass.

[Kate Schwarz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed, very thorough story of the U.S.’s westward expansion. Took me forever to get through it, mostly because of grad school. But I learned a lot!

[Bookmarks Magazine]

In Seizing Destiny, Richard Kluger, author of the Supreme Court study Simple Justice (1977) and Ashes to Ashes (1997), a Pulitzer Prize-winning look at the tobacco industry, takes as his subject America's expansion "from sea to shining sea." Critics are generally positive in their assessment of the book, and applaud Kluger's willingness to deal with the less-heroic details of American expansion. Some, however, question the author's thesis and its execution. That the motives for land acquisition were not as pure as earlier generations were led to believe is now orthodoxy, and Kluger's argument tends to reiterate this once-revisionist history. Still, the author's voluminous research and intricate analysis of the important events are sound, and his presentation is engaging.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Nemanja Sh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly fantastic book. What is great about it is that it almost entirely ignores the wars and battles while concentrating on the diplomatic and political aspect of the United States'expansion.

The book is easy to read and it helps the reader in gaining better understanding of where the United States come from and why it behaves the way it does today.

One thing that I disliked is that it did not devote more pages to the formation/creation of US states. I think this would be far more interesting than the 20 to 30 pages devoted to the rather boring negotiation with the British regarding the border with today's Canada.

The very last sentence in more than interesting:

'Destiny has never been fond of lingering in one place, or favouring one people, forever.'

Today's position of the United States is similar to the British one at the start of the 20th century. The fate of the American 'Empire' will be interesting to follow, especially when faced with internal strife.

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the densest book I've actually managed to get through in ages. It was great. Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Kluger really digs into the wheeling and dealing and bullying and arrogance behind all of the United States' land acquisitions.

You hear about the Louisiana Purchase, Seward's Folly and all the rest in school, but you never get to know about all the the back-room negotiations, bribes, threats of war and underhanded tricks it took to actually win them.

I also learned how arrogant, overbearing, greedy, pushy and rude America has always been. No wonder Europe doesn't like us! I wouldn't like us either.

[Jean-Paul Adriaansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This chronicle explains the fast and enormous growth of the U.S.A. from the arrival of the first colonists to the 20th century. In the belief that the hand of providence was supporting them, our forefathers grasped every
opportunity, by every kind of means, to expand their territory.
This is an appalling account of how, with
diplomacy, dumb luck, aggression, cunning, and a racist conviction, a whole continent
became one country with one culture and
without language barriers.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! My main interest was to explore more the Mexican American war of 1846, this book covers that and all other territorial acquisitions by hook or crook.

[!Tæmbuŝu]

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