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Based on a thorough examination of government documents, congressional debates and reports, private papers of government and business leaders, and newspapers, David M. Pletcher begins this monumental study with a comprehensive survey of U.S. trade following the Civil War. He goes on to outline the problems of building a coherent trade policy toward Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. The study concludes by analyzing a series of abortive trade reform efforts and examining the effects of the Spanish-American War. Pletcher rejects the long-held belief that American business and government engaged in a deliberate, consistent drive for economic hegemony in the hemisphere during the late 18OOs. Instead he finds that the American government improvised and experimented with ways to further trade expansion.
Popular American essayist, novelist, and journalist CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER (1829-1900) was renowned for the warmth and intimacy of his writing, which encompassed travelogue, biography and autobiography, fiction, and more, and influenced entire generations of his fellow writers. Here, the prolific writer turned editor for his final grand work, a splendid survey of global literature, classic and modern, and it's not too much to suggest that if his friend and colleague Mark Twain-who stole Warner's quip about how "everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it"-had assembled this set, it would still be hailed today as one of the great achievements of the book world. Volume 43 is Part Two of a dictionary of authors-from Hans Vilhelm Kaalund to Ulrich Zwingli-that serves as a handy, condensed reference to the authors quoted in the first 40 volumes, as well as a guide to thousands more authors whose works are notable but not featured in this set.
The importance of history and its relevance to the present have seldom gone unquestioned in modern times. This is particularly true in the United States, born as the quintessentially modern nation, where the image of a vast open frontier and the unofficial state creed of limitless progress have diminished the importance of the past, and where the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson proclaimed that nature and personal experience made tradition irrelevant for the self-reliant American.