Engineering Expansion

Reviews / Votes

"With the publication of William D. Adler's excellent book, Engineering Expansion we now have a comprehensive account of the army as an institution of state power from 1787 until the Civil War....Any scholar of American Political Development, institutional development, or military history will benefit from a close reading of Engineering Expansion. Students, in particular, will find Adler's book to be an excellent guide to current scholarly debates in APD. Although many questions remain about the army's role in early America, Adler's concise volume should inspire further studies of this long neglected institution of American state building. As Adler demonstrates so persuasively in this fine book, it is time for APD to bring the military back in." (Perspectives on Politics) "William D. Adler's impressive book is a vitally important contribution to the history of nineteenth-century American political economy and the early American state. Adler convincingly argues that the United States' military was a driving force in the development of the national state, in the expansion of national boundaries, and in the dramatic growth of the national marketplace....Engineering Expansion makes a fine contribution to our understanding of American political economy, state building, and foreign relations through a detailed examinationof the Army. However much the military has been missing from the literature, Adler has successfully brought it back in." (H-DIPLO) "[I]n describing how the army contributed to the growth of the United States before the Civil War, by showing how the army was an integral part of political and economic forces driving the nation, and by demonstrating that the army was not merely a passive instrument that conformed to political will but rather-through its officers and staff bureaus-an active institution in shaping national life, Adler has done students of economics, history, and political science a worthy service. And he is entirely correct to conclude that the national economy the U.S. Army helped to build enabled the ultimate triumph of the northern states over the southern slavocracy in 1865. Students of the U.S. Army will need to account for this study in future interdisciplinary conversations." (The Journal of the Civil War Era)