The Picky Eagle

The Picky Eagle explains why the United States stopped annexing territory by focusing on annexation's domestic consequences, both political and normative. It describes how the US rejection of further annexations, despite its rising power, set the stage for twentieth-century efforts to outlaw conquest. In contrast to conventional accounts of a nineteenth-century shift from territorial expansion to commercial expansion, Richard W. Maass argues that US ambitions were selective from the start.

By presenting twenty-three case studies, Maass examines the decision-making of US leaders facing opportunities to pursue annexation between 1775 and 1898. US presidents, secretaries, and congressmen consistently worried about how absorbing new territories would affect their domestic political influence and their goals for their country. These leaders were particularly sensitive to annexation's domestic costs where xenophobia interacted with their commitment to democracy: rather than grant political representation to a large alien population or subject it to a long-term imperial regime, they regularly avoided both of these perceived bad options by rejecting annexation. As a result, US leaders often declined even profitable opportunities for territorial expansion, and they renounced the practice entirely once no desirable targets remained.

In addition to offering an updated history of the foundations of US territorial expansion, The Picky Eagle adds important nuance to previous theories of great-power expansion, with implications for our understanding of US foreign policy and international relations.

Richard W. Maass is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science and Geography at Old Dominion University. Follow him on X @richardmaass.

Scholars have charted in meticulous detail the upstart nation's transformation from a motley conglomeration of former British colonies into a transcontinental empire with, after the colonialist outburst of 1898, global reach. Richard W. Maass's The Picky Eagle swims against this tide, focusing not on the conventional story of incremental expansion but instead on the many instances in which the United States left on the table opportunities to annex more territory.

Maass has written a book that is theoretically ambitious and empirically expansive, and the historical and archival evidence he marshals is rich, impressive, and ultimately convincing.

In this timely, relevant and historically rich book, political scientist Richard Maass asks: Why did the United States stop annexing territory? His question implicitly recognizes what historians of US foreign relations have said for a very long time: rather than being 'isolationist', the United States expanded vigorously throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

George Herring, University of Kentucky, author of From Colony to Superpower:

Impressively researched and persuasively argued, Richard Maass's The Picky Eagle takes a fresh look at the forces driving American expansionism and offers new and intriguing answers to the often overlooked question of why the nation did not annex additional territory. Highly recommended for historians and political scientists.

Peter Liberman, author of Does Conquest Pay?:

In this sweeping, engaging account, Richard Maass makes the compelling case that the US appetite for annexation was often tempered by a reluctance to absorb culturally different populations or those who would side with domestic political opponents.

Scott Silverstone, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, author of From Hitler's Germany to Saddam's Iraq:

The Picky Eagle poses important and provocative questions about the history of territorial expansion, annexation, and imperialism—and its future. The theoretical approach is original, capturing the American case better than any other work in political science.