A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico (Vintage)
Historian Greenberg, who specializes in Manifest Destiny, advances a thesis about the expansionist doctrine’s realization through the Mexican-American War of 1846–48. As he sees it, things could have been much worse for Mexico, for at times President James Polk demanded more Mexican territory than he eventually settled for. Greenberg argues that strengthening antiwar sentiment deterred Polk, the evidence for which she draws from four figures who opposed the war: Henry Clay, Polk’s opponent in the 1844 election; Nicholas Trist, Polk’s diplomat, who defied orders and negotiated the peace treaty; Abraham Lincoln; and Lincoln’s now-forgotten Illinois political rival, John Hardin. Greenberg brings forth interesting details about each character’s political life and stance toward proposals to annex Texas that posed an obvious risk of war. Particularly intriguing is the prominence Greenberg accords to Hardin, whose deepening doubt about the war never assumed public expression and who, killed at the Battle of Buena Vista, was honored as a war hero. Adding Polk’s politically talented wife to the historical mix, Greenberg clothes a provocative main idea in a freshly original narrative. --Gilbert Taylor--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.