Long before the United States became a global superpower, it was already casting its gaze far beyond its borders. In the decades before the Civil War, American ships sailed to the farthest corners of the globe, to protect and expand commerce, project political and religious influence, and stake out a place in the European-dominated global order.
This was a period when young American sailors and naval officers carried the ambitions of a rising republic into unfamiliar waters and foreign lands, helping to shape US foreign relations in ways that are often overshadowed by the nation’s internal conflicts.
What did this early outward engagement look like? How did these expeditions reflect the hopes and anxieties of a growing nation? And what can they tell us about the ways Americans viewed the world?
Historian Dr. Michael Verney is the author of A Great and Rising Nation: Naval Exploration and Global Empire in the Early US Republic (University of Chicago Press, July 2022). Dr. Verney teaches at Drury University. His work explores the global history of the early US republic with a focus on maritime expansion, encounters, and empire.
