"American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850" by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny.
The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent. Native peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers through strategic alliances with the other continental powers.