The ostensible cause of the Mexican War (1846-48) was a dispute over the precise border between Texas and Mexico, but the actual cause was the desire of many Americans, led by President Polk, to acquire California and vast territories of the Southwest, thus fulfilling our "Manifest Destiny" to extend to the Pacific. Wheelan prepares an easily digestible account of the war itself as well as a useful analysis of its causes and effects. As Wheelan illustrates, the launching of the war generated intense domestic opposition, led by such notable figures as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and an obscure Illinois congressman, Abraham Lincoln. The American victory did not unify the country with patriotic fervor; instead, it intensified North-South antagonism. Polk is seen here as an intriguing combination of Jeffersonian idealist and cynical expansionist.

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