James K. Polk: A Clear and Unquestionable Destiny (Biographies in American Foreign Policy)

This book is in very good condition. There is minimal wear on the covers, There is no bumping or fraying. The pages are clear of any markings.

"A steady rain fell upon the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on March 4, 1845, forty-one year-old James K. Polk took the oath of office as the eleventh president of the United States. The youngest chief executive until that time, Polk brought with him twenty-two years of political experience that gave him the confidence to successfully deal with the national challenges before him. But, could he? Did Polk understand the immense changes that the United States had undergone since 1823 when he began his political career? The Jeffersonian America into which Polk was born in 1795 differed greatly from the America of 1845 when he assumed the presidency. From the original thirteen states, the country now numbered twenty-seven, with Texas awaiting admission to the Union, By the 1840s people had moved into the Louisiana Territory and many Americans learned about the wonders of the Far West from their reading of Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, and the reports from the Navy's Charles Wilkes and the Army's Captain John C. Fremont...." - Chapter One from James K. Polk A Clear and Unquestionable Destiny