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The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America. By Jay Sexton. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011. Pp. 294. Paper, $26.00.)
Reviewed by James E. Lewis, Jr.
A touchstone for American foreign policy for the better part of two centuries, the Monroe Doctrine possesses a rich and varied history that has been examined for many different eras and from many different angles by historians, political scientists, and others. One might wonder if it remains possible to say anything novel about it, particularly in a work that is broadly accessible and largely synthetic. By making new choices about periodization and perspective, however, Jay Sexton offers an informative and impressive account of the Monroe Doctrine as it developed over a long sweep of American history. In the process, he highlights the domestic and foreign possibilities and pressures that slowly transformed a tentative and limited assertion of anticolonial ideals into a confident and sweeping - but always contested - basis for imperialist actions. In his hands, considering the evolution of the Monroe Doctrine becomes a means to examine "the protracted, contentious, and interconnected processes of anticolonial liberation, internal national consolidation and imperial expansion" that underlay the United States' emergence "as the preeminent global power of the twentieth century" (5).
Rather than limit the work to the doctrine's origins and early impacts or extend the coverage to its ongoing relevance, Sexton addresses what we might describe as the Monroe Doctrine's "long nineteenth century" - from the Treaty...