A public talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Steven Hahn

The U.S. History Workshop in partnership with the Approaches to Capitalism Workshop presents a public talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Steven Hahn. Presenting his newly published book, A Nation Without Borders: The United States and its World in an Age of Civil Wars 1830-1910, Hahn will discuss his thought-provoking interpretation of America’s nineteenth century. His ambitious narrative of imperial conquest and capitalist development explores the massive transformations in American life and thought in the era between 1830 and 1910, tracing the rise of a central American state and capitalist economy through an internationalist framework. Placing the Civil War in the context of a variety of domestic rebellions against state authority, Hahn also fully incorporates the importance and influence of the trans-Mississippi West and the Pacific throughout the century. Through its new and frequently international vantage points, the book offers a fresh take on America’s nineteenth-century transformations that productively challenges some of our most fundamental beliefs about how America came to be a nation. The book is part of The Penguin History of the United States series and will be of interest to anyone with a passion for American history or the transnational approach.