Adventurism and Empire: The Struggle for Mastery in the Louisiana-Florida Borderlands, 1762-1803

In this expansive book, David Narrett shows how the United States emerged as a successor empire to Great Britain through rivalry with Spain in the Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coast. As he traces currents of peace and war over four critical decades — from the close of the Seven Years War through the Louisiana Purchase — Narrett sheds new light on individual colonial adventurers and schemers who shaped history through cross-border trade, settlement projects involving slave and free labor, and...