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During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the United States pursued an aggressive policy of expansionism, extending its political and economic influence around the globe. After temporarily resolving the problems of Reconstruction and Industrialization, Americans began to resume the course of expansion. The horrors of the Civil War had interrupted the original Manifest Destiny that began in the 1840s. Now, as pioneers settled the last western frontiers, expansionists looked yet farther to the west …

…the world had cowered. But the ease with which America gained its new possessions obscured the responsibilities that came with them. Dollar diplomacy would soon drag a reluctant America into the muddy trenches of the Western Front. The "Open Door" welcomed a series of squabbles that later erupted in a mushroom cloud. But few in that innocent era could foresee such extraordinary events. Most believed that America was simply following its natural order, its destiny.