{"id":263,"date":"2021-03-02T08:45:08","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T13:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/rmaass\/?page_id=263"},"modified":"2023-11-15T10:26:26","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T15:26:26","slug":"book","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/rmaass\/book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Picky Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Picky Eagle<\/em> (first published by Cornell University Press in 2020, with a paperback edition released in September 2023) explains why the United States stopped annexing territory by focusing on annexation’s domestic political and normative consequences. In addition to offering an updated history of the foundations of U.S. territorial expansion, it adds important nuance to previous theories of great-power expansion, with implications for our understanding of U.S. foreign policy and international relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast to conventional accounts of a nineteenth-century shift from territorial expansion to commercial expansion, I argue that U.S. ambitions were selective from the start. Offering domestic impact theory as an improvement upon existing theories that prioritize the profitability of conquest, The Picky Eagle <\/em>tests it across 23 case studies examining the decision-making of U.S. leaders facing opportunities to pursue annexation between 1775 and 1898. U.S. presidents, secretaries, and congressmen consistently worried about how absorbing new territories would affect their domestic political influence and their goals for their country. These leaders were particularly sensitive to annexation’s domestic costs where xenophobia interacted with their commitment to democracy: rather than grant political representation to a large alien population or subject it to a long-term imperial regime, they regularly avoided both of these perceived bad options by rejecting annexation. As a result, U.S. leaders often declined even profitable opportunities for territorial expansion, and they renounced the practice entirely once no desirable targets remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Picky Eagle: How Democracy and Xenophobia Limited U.S. Territorial Expansion \ud83e\udd85@CornellPress<\/a>:https:\/\/t.co\/voeVUTd4QS<\/a>@Bookshop_Org<\/a>:https:\/\/t.co\/DIl1RQK7xh<\/a>@Amazon<\/a>:https:\/\/t.co\/6bHUog3V0v<\/a>@BNBuzz<\/a>:https:\/\/t.co\/okFP2m91p7<\/a><\/p>— Richard Maass (@richardmaass) May 16, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>