THe United States' Land Based Empire 

Overview

Is the United States an empire?  Early imaginings of the United States' destiny included Jefferson's  1780 sentiment, "an empire of liberty", in which the new nation would spread republicanism across North America and beyond. Expansion south and westward in the 19th century realized Jefferson's imperial foresight through war, settlement, and diplomacy. The subsequent annexation of fabricated territories as official "states" to the nation, however, clouded peoples' historical memory and present understanding regarding  what William Gilpin noted in the mid 1800s "The pioneer army perpetually... strikes to the front. Empire plants itself upon the trails. " Simply put, if you have been to Florida or visited states west of the Appalachian Mountains, you have spent time in the United States' land based empire.  

The "empire question" has returned in the 21st century to both the public consciousness and the professional landscape of historians. Since 2001 a litany of books, articles, and other media have attempted to navigate the question.  Niall Ferguson's Colossus (2004) identifies a curious denial by Americans to come to terms with their imperial state. In From Colony to Superpower (2008), George Herring uses the lens of foreign policy to narrate the country's "aggressive and relentlessly expansionist" history. American Empire: A Global History (2018) expand the context of our understanding through comparisons of the US land empire with other efforts of the time. Finally, Daniel Immerwahr's How to Hide an Empire (2019) provided a fresh analysis of the United States' relationship with imperialism.

Despite this documented history of the United States empire, textbooks, museums, and content providers continue to promote a narrative that frames American empire as 1) Only overseas and 2) Limited to a brief moment called the Spanish-American War.  Furthermore, this telling prefers using euphemisms like "Manifest Destiny", super power, and hegemon, to intentionally avoid the "E" word. This module provides resources for educators to design units that will provide a better understanding of the US empire, historically and today, for their students.