Historian Howe illuminates the period of American history from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expands to the Pacific and wins control over the richest part of the North American continent.

Daniel Walker Howe is Rhodes Professor of American History Emeritus, Oxford University and Professor of History Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Political Culture of the American Whigs and Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. He lives in Los Angeles.