Manifest Destiny
Westward Expansion, the Mexican-American War, and the Making of a Continental EmpireBy Charles Westbrook Hoyt
Length6h 28m
About this audiobook
Manifest destiny history — the complete narrative of American westward expansion, the Mexican-American War, the Oregon Trail, the California Gold Rush, and the continental empire that reshaped a republic, 1820-1861.
In the summer of 1845, editor John Louis O'Sullivan wrote two words that compressed three million square miles of territorial conquest into a political slogan: "manifest destiny." His phrase declared America's expansion not a choice but a cosmic inevitability — divinely ordained, beyond moral criticism. The Mexican government whose territory Polk was about to seize, the Cayuse whose missionaries were the advance guard of dispossession, the Californios whose ranchos would be absorbed — none of them experienced manifest destiny as progress. They experienced it as conquest, because it was.
This manifest destiny history covers the expansionist 1840s across twenty-four chapters. Historian Charles Westbrook Hoyt traces the ideology from O'Sullivan's editorials through James K. Polk's agenda — Texas annexation, the Oregon settlement at the 49th parallel, the Mexican-American War, and the acquisition of California and the Southwest — integrating the perspectives of those who drove expansion with those displaced by it.
Inside this westward expansion history:
Texas Annexation and Polk's war — the Liberty Party's 15,812 New York votes that tipped the 1844 election to Polk, and Lincoln's "Spot Resolutions" demanding Polk identify the exact ground where American blood had first been shed (Chapters 5-8)
The Oregon Trail — the 2,000-mile overland migration and the 52-to-50 vote at Champoeg that determined Oregon's political character (Chapters 13-14)
The California Gold Rush and the Compromise of 1850 — California's 1849 convention at Monterey, the Fugitive Slave Act, and Harriet Beecher Stowe's claim that the Fugitive Slave Law wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin (Chapters 10, 17)
Native peoples and conquest — the Whitman massacre as recognition that missionaries were the advance guard of dispossession, and the Gadsden Purchase boundary cutting through Tohono O'odham territory (Chapters 12, 18)
The legacy of manifest destiny — how Kansas-Nebraska, Bleeding Kansas, and Dred Scott were the direct political consequences of Polk's acquisitions (Chapters 21-24)
This westward expansion history holds both experiences in view: the energy of emigrants walking two thousand miles to Oregon, and the violence of a war fought under false pretenses. The continent was acquired; the reckoning with how continues.
For readers of David McCullough's THE PIONEERS and S.C. Gwynne's EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length6 hrs 28 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
20Chapter 13: The Oregon Trail — Two Thousand Miles of Hope
2Author’s Note
21Chapter 14: The Donner Party and the Limits of Expansion
3Prologue: The Horizon Calls
22Chapter 15: The Santa Fe Trail and the Southwest
4PART ONE: THE IDEOLOGY OF EXPANSION (1820–1845)
23Chapter 16: Emigrants, Commerce, and the Expansion Economy
5Chapter 1: The Phrase and the Idea — John L. O'Sullivan and Manifest Destiny
24PART FIVE: CALIFORNIA, THE PACIFIC, AND FURTHER DREAMS (1848–1860)
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 2: The American Frontier Before Polk
25Chapter 17: California Statehood and the Compromise of 1850
7Chapter 3: Texas — Revolution, Republic, and Annexation
26Chapter 18: The Gadsden Purchase and the Southern Route
8Chapter 4: The Oregon Question — America, Britain, and the Pacific Northwest
27Chapter 19: Filibusteros — Private Armies and Caribbean Ambitions
9PART TWO: JAMES K. POLK AND THE WAR FOR TERRITORY (1844–1848)
28Chapter 20: The Pacific Ocean and America's Maritime Empire
10Chapter 5: The Election of 1844 and the Politics of Expansion
29PART SIX: EXPANSION AND THE COMING CRISIS (1850–1861)
11Chapter 6: The Annexation of Texas and the Road to War
30Chapter 21: The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Slavery Question
12Chapter 7: The Mexican-American War — Opening Campaigns
31Chapter 22: Bleeding Kansas — The First American Civil War
13Chapter 8: Scott, Taylor, and the March to Mexico City
32Chapter 23: The Last Frontiers Before the Storm
14PART THREE: THE CONQUEST AND ITS TERMS (1847–1850)
33Chapter 24: The Legacy of Manifest Destiny — An Empire Examined
15Chapter 9: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo — Half a Continent
34Epilogue: The Price of a Continent
16Chapter 10: The California Gold Rush — 1849 and Its World
35Acknowledgments
17Chapter 11: The Mormon Migration and the Great Basin
36Selected Bibliography
18Chapter 12: Native Peoples and the Wave of Conquest
37About the Author
19PART FOUR: THE GREAT OVERLAND TRAILS (1840–1860)
More from Charles Westbrook Hoyt
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m$40 · $0.00
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m$20 · $0.00
Frederick Douglass: All 3 Memoirs in One VolumeFrederick Douglass44h 9m$2 · $0.00
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America (Annotated)Howard Irving Chapelle, Tappan Adney13h 10m$2 · $0.00
I've Been to the MountaintopMartin Luther King48m5 (1)$11 · $0.00
RevolutionariesSanjeev Sanyal11h 23m$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h$24 · $0.00
Unbroken Bonds of BattleJohnny Joey Jones8h 31m$8 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m$29 · $0.00
Saving My EnemyBob Welch9h 11m$20
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m$33 · $0.00
The Fire Next TimeJames Baldwin2h 25m$15
EnduranceAlfred Lansing6h 1m$20
LES MISERABLES (Illustrated Edition)Victor Hugo66h 17m$1 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m$28 · $0.00
You may also like
Fourth State of the Union AddressJames K. Polk3h 45m$2 · $0.00
Latin for Beginners (Annotated)Benjamin L. D'Ooge10h 53m$2 · $0.00
AlexandriaE. M. Forster6h 47m$2 · $0.00
State of the Union AddressesJames Monroe4h 49m$1 · $0.00
World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500Eugene Berger, George Israel, Charlotte Miller, Brian Parkinson, Andrew Reeves, Nadejda Williams21h 22m$3 · $0.00
The Book of Ancient GreeksDorothy Mills11h 13m$2.30
The Histories Vol 2Herodotus15h 54m$2.30
A History Of The Colonization Of Africa By Alien RacesHarry Johnston20h 56m$2.40
A History of the United StatesCecil Chesterton11h 26m$1 · $0.00
History of the Phoenician CivilizationGeorge Rawlinson16h 50m$1 · $0.00
The QuranAllah23h 7m$1 · $0.00
The History of Medieval EuropeLynn Thorndike24h 28m$2 · $0.00
Biblical Geography and HistoryCharles Foster Kent11h 18m$2 · $0.00
Pictures of Southern Life, Social, Political, and MilitarySir William Howard Russell7h 22m$2.30
The Winning of the West (Complete Edition)Theodore Roosevelt47h 7m$2 · $0.00
History of The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire Vol VEdward Gibbon29h 43m$2.30
History of the American Frontier 1763–1893Frederic L. Paxson24h 55m$30
Civil WarsDavid Armitage7h 19m$20
World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500Eugene Berger, George Israel, Charlotte Miller, Brian Parkinson, Andrew Reeves, Nadejda Williams21h 24m$1.50 · $0.00
A New History of the United StatesCharles Morris18h 16m$2 · $0.00