In 1803, the United States purchased 828,000 square miles of land from France at a price of approximately three cents per acre, dramatically altering the young nation’s geography and its political future. President Thomas Jefferson had struggled for three years over the purchase, which many believed to be unconstitutional, during which time the land changed hands between the French and the Spanish. In perhaps the nation's most formative development since the Revolutionary War, the deal secured the U.S. territory that would become fifteen new states, sparked intense public argument about the American Frontier, and ensured Jefferson a complicated legacy in American history.
With special attention to the diplomatic and constitutional background of the purchase, The Louisiana Purchase examines the event in the context of the Atlantic world, including the impact of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars in Europe, colonial revolutions in the Caribbean, and the westward expansion of the U.S. population. In five concise chapters bolstered by primary documents including treaties, letters, and first-hand observations, Robert D. Bush introduces students to the political history of this momentous land acquisition.
Preface
1. The Louisiana Purchase: A Global Context, Background
2. Louisiana in Spanish Global Policy, 1763-1802
3. Louisiana in French Global Policy, 1800-1803
4. Louisiana in American Domestic and Global Policy, 1800-1803
Documents
Biography
Robert D. Bush is an Instructor of history at Front Range Community College.
"This well-researched and erudite volume firmly places the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 within an international context. In so doing, it highlights the intricate foreign policy initiatives of the United States, France, and Spain which resulted in this momentous territorial addition to the nation. It constitutes required reading for anyone interested in the subject."
– Light Townsend Cummins, Austin College, President of the Louisiana Historical Association
"In The Louisiana Purchase, Dr. Robert Bush prompts us to reexamine one of America’s most important events. He squarely seats it within a greater global context, while reminding us all the while of the integral role the purchase played in helping shape the future destiny of the nation."
– Bruce Nye, Front Range Community College
"Bob Bush has provided a clear, richly-researched reassessment of the Louisiana Purchase. More important, by telling the story in the context of world affairs, he demonstrates how historians utilize a wide variety of primary documents in analyzing important historical events. Bush's work demonstrates the essential dependencies between historical interpretation and archival research in reassessing a complicated story of war, diplomacy, international affairs and national aspirations. Students of history and archival studies will benefit from this work."
– Philip J. Roberts, University of Wyoming
"The goal of this book is an admirable one. Too often, U.S. history textbooks provide students with only a brief examination of the diplomacy and "discovery" elements of the Louisiana Purchase and the subsequent exploration of the territory [...] Bush and Series editor Dr. William Thomas Allison of Georgia Southern University provide the reader with an examination of the French experience with the territory, the balance of power politics that influence the territory's transfer bewteen powers, and, reflective of the book's strengths, a liverly reading of the debates between American Politicans, the intellectual acrobatics Jefferson, Madison, and others performedi n order to justify or oppose the puchase, and the wiles of several European diplomats."
-Steven J. Bucklin, University of South Dakota, Annals of Wyoming, 2014
