Making of the American Dream

Vol. II: The Beginning of the End of the RepublicAn unconventional history is one that challenges some of the myths scholars have employed to explain our past. In these two volumes Kaplan shows that every war in US history was waged either over the issue of land or for its acquisition. This work, which covers America's first 300 years, differs from others in seeking to debunk numerous flattering and conventionally accepted myths. (This is Volume II; Volume I is released separately.)Reading between the lines of what we've all been taught as US history, the author probes a little deeper into what perhaps was never denied AA- but was never spelled out, either. Some inconvenient questions emerge. Was lust for land the driving force behind every war in US history?In a lively narrative, Kaplan demonstrates that in many ways Lincoln was our worst wartime president (save Madison), and that Reconstruction was doomed from the start.The War Between the States and the rapid industrialization of the North was made possible by tapping the vast resources which lay underneath the land. Oil, coal, iron ore, copper, zinc, and other minerals made the US the richest and most powerful nation in the world by the end of the nineteenth century, when this book concludes. The book also chronicles the fledgling Labor movement in the 19th century, handily discredited through equation with AA"e;anarchists,AA"e; and explores the cynicism with which McKinley embarked on a new imperialist expansionism.Volume II assesses the Civil War and Reconstruction, shifts in the balance of power between the three branches of government, corruption under the Grant and Hayes Administrations, the Railroad Age, the plight of the Negro, the farmer, and labor in general, economic panics, and the Spanish-American War.The basic thrust of this 2-volume work is neither to expose AmericaAA's blemishes nor to eulogize its virtues.A Rather, the author focuses on US history from a different perspective than is usually accepted. Readers may disagree with his interpretations but will find his arguments intriguing.