Book Review: Dominion From Sea To Sea
Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power
By Bruce Cumings
The history of the United States is often told with a focus on the Atlantic and America’s interaction with Europe. Bruce Cumings takes another approach. He chronicles our drive westward, and goes beyond our western states, to Asia and the Philippines.
This westward expansion drove America. Cities rising in the west created a two-ocean economy - taking us from a European perspective to involvement with East Asia. Our global influence grew, and you can see the effects of our ascendancy in Hong Kong and Singapore.
This book is a history of how the West has transformed America. It looks at our country’s rise in power from a Pacific view.
This book was interesting to chew on for a while, and it taught me more than a little about America’s globalization. However, the book is sprawling. It referenced so many different topics and people that I found myself lost at times. Maybe I am just not well-read enough to follow along, but I would have preferred a more concise and focused history.
The book has about 500 pages (not counting the notes and bibliography), and I loved about 350 pages of it.
More info:
- Bruce Cumings is chair of the University of Chicago’s History Department.
- Dominion from Sea to Sea was published in November 2009 by Yale University Press.
- See the book on Amazon.
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