The Mexican – American War: A Divisive Expansion by in60Learning – Book Review

United States, the country whose independence is often identified back to late 18^th Century although the country we know today is a result of a series of acquisitions and wars. One such war was the Mexican-American war, which resulted in the acquisition of two of the most influential and prosperous states in the United States today, being California and Texas. This is a short retelling of the events from in60Learning.

Mexico had just fought a war to gain independence from Spain. In the United States, the slave owners wanted to increase the number of states where slavery was permitted. The northern territories of Mexico, including Texas, California and New Mexico was sparsely populated and barely administrated. There was a wave of American immigration to Texas leading their eventual independence once they outnumbered Mexicans. However, that wasn’t sufficient as United States, in its want of territory, provoked Mexico for an attack for the sake of justification for going for war. It resulted in a highly one sided war, where they Mexicans had much inferior artillery and equipment. However, the American fear was that if they don’t invade Mexico, Britain will; and it was not viable to have Britain as a West Coast neighbor for United States.

The book explains the root of the conflict, the political discourse in the United States over it, wherein a lot of politicians, including some of them being future Presidents, were opposed to the war. It then goes on to explain the fragile political environment in Mexico, the repeated change of governments and stances on war. The conclusion has an interesting take, as to how US acquired large territory by means of the Mexican Cession, the US did pay a price in the end.

Since this is a more recent event from the historical perspective, there was lesser need to cite conflicting sources and the lack of availability of sources from the other end unlike the case of what I had read earlier from them, The Battle of Thermopylae. So, I like it that they are willing to change their style depending upon the circumstances or the event. The book as such was structured well and gave good insight to the whole conflict.

On that note, I would award the book a rating of eight on ten.

Rating – 8/10

Have a nice day,
Andy