Summary of Niall Ferguson's Colossus

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The United States was designed from its very inception to be an empire. The Founding Fathers were very confident in their empire-building abilities, and they envisioned a country that would extend far beyond its initial boundaries.

#2 The American Empire was established in the 1760s, and by the 1800s, the vision of a continental empire was largely realized. Yet Morse’s prediction that America’s expansion would go beyond the continent’s two ocean shores was only very feebly fulfilled.

#3 The American expansion was easy, as the Native American populations were too small and technologically backward to offer any resistance to the hordes of white settlers swarming westward.

#4 After the American Revolution, the United States was able to acquire territory from European powers without having to fight for it. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the size of the United States, including all or part of thirteen future states.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822510555

IRB Media

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Insights on Niall Ferguson's Colossus

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The United States was designed from its very inception to be an empire. The Founding Fathers were very confident in their empire-building abilities, and they envisioned a country that would extend far beyond its initial boundaries.

#2

The American Empire was established in the 1760s, and by the 1800s, the vision of a continental empire was largely realized. Yet Morse’s prediction that America’s expansion would go beyond the continent’s two ocean shores was only very feebly fulfilled.

#3

The American expansion was easy, as the Native American populations were too small and technologically backward to offer any resistance to the hordes of white settlers swarming westward.

#4

After the American Revolution, the United States was able to acquire territory from European powers without having to fight for it. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the size of the United States, including all or part of thirteen future states.

#5

The acquisition of Texas by the United States was a major obstacle for the expansion of the country. Northern abolitionists saw the expansion as a way to increase the number of slave states in the Union.

#6

The American war with Mexico was fought over the price of Texas, as American citizens had claims against the Mexican government amounting to $6. 5 million. The Mexicans declined to recognize these claims, and the American army marched on Mexico City, capturing it in September 1847.

#7

The American frontier in the first century of its existence was limited to a line running north of the forty-ninth parallel. This illustrates the limits of American expansion.

#8

The United States had already mounted a number of small-scale naval expeditions in the period before the Civil War, but actual annexation of territory beyond the shores of the continent was another matter. It was clear that the Constitution did not allow for colonies or other forms of dependent territories, only new states.

#9

American imperialism in the late nineteenth century was similar to European imperialism in the same era. The United States acquired a world-class navy, and with this, the Monroe Doctrine gained credibility.

#10

Maritime power was justified in terms of overseas commercial interests. American businessmen had no thought for opportunities beyond the borders of the United States until the 1880s, when they began to realize that there was money to be made outside of America.

#11

Economic imperialism was the same in both the United States and Britain. The only difference was that the political base for imperialism was narrower in America, and the economic rationale of acquiring colonies was more open to doubt.

#12

The first American overseas possessions were islands desirable only as naval bases or sources of guano. The atoll of Midway, formally annexed in 1867 by Captain William Reynolds of the USS Lackawanna, was among the first of these maritime filling stations.

#13

The Hawaiian islands were annexed by the United States in 1898, but they did not become a state until 1959, because of a legal technicality that defined that strange limbo between independence and American statehood.

#14

The American occupation of the Philippines was a clear example