To the Halls of the Montezumas

For mid-19th-century Americans, the Mexican War was not only a grand exercise in self-identity, legitimizing the young republic's convictions of mission and destiny to a doubting world; it was also the first American conflict to be widely reported in the press and to be waged against an alienfoe in a distant and exotic land. It provided a window onto the outside world and promoted an awareness of a people and a land unlike any Americans had known before. This rich cultural history examines the p