New Books In The American West

Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787-1860 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) threads together political science, history, economics, American political development, and administrative developments to understand the unique role that the United States’ Army played in laying the groundwork for so much of the growth and evolution both before and after the Civil War in the U.S. Political Scientist William Adler examines the understanding and place of the state in early America, digging at what really happened in the decades after the revolutionary war and the establishment of the new constitutional system. Adler highlights the interesting ways in which the U.S. Army was involved in governing this expanding territory, from providing engineering expertise, which was a scarcity at this time in the United States, to contributing to the development of economic dynamics in the young republic. As Adler notes, the U.S. Army was everywhere, but it was particularly present on the periphery of the co