To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book in the Mexican War historiography
Review: "Two thumbs up" is the simplest review for this historical analysis of the Mexican War of 1846-48. I read Johannsen's book for a class on U.S. Diplomatic History between 1776 and 1913 and loved it!! Johannsen discusses the image of the Mexican War in Americans' minds, not so much the military history of the battles. We get a better perception of America as a whole in 1846. Americans were living in an age of social and economic changes and believed that commercial pursuits were destroying the republican foundations of the new nation. To many Americans, the war with Mexico rejuvenated republican spirits and showed the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon United States against a "backward," supposedly racially inferior Mexican enemy. This book goes beyond the accounts of critics of the war, who argued that President James K. Polk and others were trying to extend slavery across the continent. We get a better sense of American reaction to the Mexican War and the changes the United States underwent during this era of "Manifest Destiny."