Author Meets Critics: Engineering Expansion

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

Author meets critics - William Adler's new book Engineering Expansion argues that the strongest part of the early American state, the U.S. Army, shaped the American economy through its coercive actions in conquering territory, expanding the nation's borders, and maintaining public order and the rule of law. It built roads, bridges, and railroads while Army engineers and ordnance officers developed new technologies, constructed forts that encouraged western settlement and nurtured nascent communities, cleared rivers, and created manufacturing innovations that spread throughout the private sector. Politicians fought for control of the Army, but War Department bureaucracies also contributed to their own development by shaping the preferences of elected officials. This panel will consist of several scholars from different areas responding to this argument and looking at it from a variety of angles.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Chairs

• John A. Dearborn Vanderbilt University

• Zak Taylor Georgia Institute of Technology

Discussant

• William D. Adler Northeastern Illinois University

Presenters

• Robert Mickey University of Michigan

• Chloe Thurston Northwestern University