ABSTRACT
In just two generations the United States transitioned from a nation on the brink of dissolution into a rising global empire. In 1898 the United States entered into and triumphed in a foreign war, taking new colonial possessions and becoming an international imperial power in the process. While expanding across the Pacific the United States simultane ously instituted colonial rule in the Caribbean Basin and Central America. Combining gunboat diplomacy with economic and political influence, the United States built the Panama Canal, reinforced the Monroe Doctrine, turned the Caribbean Sea into an American lake, and intervened militarily in revolutionary Mexico.
