Download or read book US Foreign Policy during the Progressive Era and WWI written by Sami Nighaoui and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-07-08 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lecture Notes from the year 2015 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, , course: US Cultural Studies, language: English, abstract: America’s interest in territorial expansion could be traced down to the purchase of Alaska which was purchased and annexed in 1867. The purchase was considered as a “magnificent bargain” (591.000 sq miles for 7 million dollars) by the US government of the time but the territory was scoffed at as a worthless “icebox” by the critics of Secretary of State William Seward who cut the deal. By the end of the century, American elites came to consider territorial expansion as part and parcel of America’s its historic role of civilizing the “primitive” peoples around the world. After all, the United States was, by now, a vast country with a history of confrontations (the Civil War) and a potentially powerful navy.