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Is there an American empire? In this course, we will investigate American imperialism over three centuries, placing at the center of our inquiry the contention that expansion has always and continues to be a crucial aspect of American politics. We begin with an investigation of the theoretical underpinnings of American imperialism and then move roughly chronologically from the decades before the Founding through the present, tracing the politics of each major debate about imperialism. We will pay close attention to the racial and economic processes that animate debates about American imperialism and mechanisms of imperial rule over time.