America, But Bigger
Mark Kawar
Atmosphere Press (2026)
ISBN: 979-8901741689
Reviewed by Paul Knobloch for Reader Views (09/2026)
Powered by territorial expansion and later justified by the Monroe Doctrine, American foreign policy has long been devoted to building and maintaining empire. When Donald Trump first floated the idea of buying Greenland during his first term, the proposal was widely treated as another bizarre eruption from a uniquely bizarre presidency. Mark Kawar’s America, But Bigger: Near-Annexations, from Greenland to the Galápagos reveals that it was nothing of the sort. Trump was continuing a long American tradition of looking at foreign territory and asking, “Why isn’t that ours?”
Kawar began the project as a Reddit map showing every place the United States might have annexed. As the red markings spread across North America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, and beyond, he realized the subject required a book. The resulting history covers attempted purchases, invasions, disputed borders, private conquests, proposed protectorates, strategic leases, and territories acquired and later relinquished. Kawar defines annexation broadly enough to include any serious attempt to establish lasting American sovereignty, whether or not politicians used that word.
The largest prize was Canada. American forces invaded Quebec during the Revolution and Canada again during the War of 1812, repeatedly assuming that its inhabitants would welcome them as liberators. They did not. Later plans involved border disputes, Canadian rebels, aggrieved businessmen, congressional resolutions, Irish-American Fenians, and politicians who imagined Canada naturally falling into the Union. Ironically, every invasion and threat strengthened Canadian nationalism and helped define Canada in opposition to the United States.
Mexico suffered far greater losses. The Mexican-American War transferred California, New Mexico, and an enormous expanse of northern territory to the United States, yet many expansionists demanded more. Some wanted Baja California or additional northern states; others wanted all of Mexico. Private “filibusters” attempted to create governments that might later request American annexation. At one point, in 1856, William Walker briefly made himself president of Nicaragua, legalized slavery, and dreamed of ruling Central America before a regional coalition defeated him.
Slavery runs through many of these schemes. Southern expansionists imagined Cuba, Mexico, and Central America divided into new slave states that would preserve their political power in Washington. The Knights of the Golden Circle envisioned an entire slaveholding empire centered on Havana. At the same time, racial prejudice limited expansion: many Americans wanted foreign land but not the predominantly nonwhite populations living on it. The contradiction became impossible to resolve without abandoning either republican government or racial hierarchy.
Some of the strangest episodes occur far from the continent. An American naval officer briefly claimed Nuku Hiva in French Polynesia. Entrepreneurs established an American colony in Borneo. El Salvador asked to become a state to escape Mexican conquest, while an annexation treaty for the Dominican Republic reached the Senate under Ulysses Grant. American explorers planted flags on Arctic islands, Matthew Perry considered bases on Okinawa, Taiwan, and the Bonin Islands, and the Guano Islands Act encouraged citizens to claim remote islands covered in valuable bird droppings.
Kawar also follows the transition from continental expansion to overseas empire. The Spanish-American War brought Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines under American rule while leaving Cuba technically independent but tightly controlled. Filipino resistance led to a brutal colonial war that exposed the violence behind rhetoric about civilization and benevolent government. The Panama Canal Zone became a strip of American sovereignty through the middle of another country, while military bases gave the United States much of what annexation once provided without the inconvenience of governing local populations. Roosevelt later boasted, “I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate.”
The book’s extraordinary range is its greatest strength, though the accumulation of examples occasionally makes it feel more like a catalogue than a sustained argument. Kawar openly declines to impose a single theory of imperialism on the material. That restraint allows the individual stories to speak, but a stronger interpretive thread might have helped connect them and reduced some repetition.
Nevertheless, America, But Bigger is a lively, accessible, and frequently astonishing history. Its deeper point emerges through the accumulation: American expansionism did not disappear when the borders stopped moving. It evolved into military bases, protectorates, financial domination, trade agreements, and cultural power. Trump’s revived talk of Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza, and even Mexico therefore belongs to no historical vacuum. The American eagle is still hungry. It has simply learned that it can often feed without enlarging the map.
At a Glance: This accessible U.S. history examines serious efforts to acquire foreign lands, from neighboring nations to distant islands. It traces how territorial ambitions intersected with slavery, race, military strategy, and evolving forms of American influence.
Best for Readers Who Enjoy: American history, U.S. expansionism, territorial history, political history, military history, overlooked historical episodes, history of imperialism, unusual American history, narrative nonfiction