My interest in this book was sparked by a passing mention in a Wikipedia article on the Gadsden Purchase.

As originally envisioned, the purchase would have encompassed a much larger region, extending far enough south to include most of the current Mexican states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas as well as all of the Baja California peninsula.

Uh, what? The Gadsden Purchase has always been this bizarre little appendage to the border that’s barely ever mentioned in history classes. For years I wondered why that chunk of land was added to the US. What was there that was so important? And if it was important, why wasn’t it included in the original Mexican Cession after the war? Knowing that the purchase could have been a much grander plan made more sense to me, but it also whet my appetite. Why didn’t this grand plan go forth, and why even bother with this tiny bite of desert if Mexico didn’t want to sell something bigger? So intrigued, I looked over Wikipedia’s footnotes and came upon Seizing Destiny by Richard Kluger.

This is also the first library book I’ve read in years. Usually I buy everything I read from Amazon. This time though I was feeling extraordinarily cheap. Lacking my own library card I had a friend pick up a copy for me.

I gotta say Kluger is an angry man. In the first chapter he basically insults everyone. The Europeans are greedy degenerates. The Spanish are especially inept and pompous. The Natives, who you expect would get off with some liberal coddling, sound like wide-eyed ignoramouses. Kluger calls Americans “land hungry” every chance he gets.

And why did we have this ravenous appetite? You might expect a Berkeley academic to answer that question with “greed” and feel satisfied. Kluger pins it on poor farming practices. American farmers rarely ever tried to maintain soil quality. They frequently exhausted their soil’s nutrients and moved on to new parcels. This migration is what fueled the ever constant demand for land.

I can accept that explanation. I can see the futility in convincing farmers to bear the expenses of changing their farming technique when North America was so empty. They knew that westward land was just sitting there thanks to French and Spanish incompetence. Those colonies were patches of land used to harvest furs or mine precious metals. Why not take their useful soil away when they never bothered to use it. This attitude also explains why that thirst for land petered out at the end of the 19th century. America moved from agrarian to industrial. Farming was no longer the prime driver of the economy. America no longer needed more land to grow because its citizens found opportunity in other jobs. After the Civil War territorial expansion was justified as protecting or enhancing American trade. Alaska was purchased because it would save American vessels time crossing the Pacific by resupplying there. We held on to the Philippines and Puerto Rico because we wanted naval bases that would protect American trade. Even though we defeated Spain, we rejected annexing Cuba. If Americans really desired to expand the country for the sake of expanding the country, that would never have happened.

That argument is still very interesting but that’s not why I picked up this book. I was hoping to hear all the little details that surrounded each territorial expansion. As Wikipedia hinted, the Gadsden Purchase could have been a much larger transaction that swallowed up a lot more of northern Mexico. Well why didn’t it happen? Why was it proposed? What happened in the negotiations? Was the US close to forging a deal for a huge chunk of territory, or was it never really realistic? I imagined the Mexican Cession, the Texas Annexation, the Louisiana Purchase, among other land transactions also had such interesting but little known details surrounding them.

In this respect I was disappointed in the book. There just wasn’t enough detail to satisfy me. It was fascinating to know that the Louisiana Purchase’s legality was quite dubious and that had nothing to do with any constitutional doubt about whether the federal government could purchase land. When Louisiana was transferred back to France from Spain, the Spanish insisted that France return the land if France decided not to move forward with colonization. Instead Napoleon backstabbed Spain and sold the territory to the US. Unlike what you see in textbooks, the borders of Louisiana were not neatly circumscribed either. The US spent a lot of time negotiating the borders with Spain, at least once Spain gave up demanding the land be returned.

All of this fascinates me, but I still wanted more. What the book also lacked was any mention of failed schemes. I would have loved to read about plans the US had for acquiring territory that failed, and who had plotted to detach land from the US but never succeeded. It’s those what might have been moments that really make my imagination run.

Seizing Destiny was generally a good read though. Kluger kept the book mostly free of that liberal Berkeley vibe. He saved it for the last half of the last chapter where he’s writing about the Panama Canal, and it still wasn’t as harsh as any characature you can come up with.

I found out through RedState that the Obama Administration has no love for the Chevy Volt. Now, RedState is the only conservative source I’ve read on this subject, but it seemed pretty negative on Obama’s report. I hope the conservative media doesn’t take this meme to heart. The Volt is a bad idea and GM will be better off the sooner it stops wasting money on it. This report denouncing the Volt is probably the best thing that will ever come from the Obama Administration.

Not that the whole report is smart. Apparently the great conclusion is that GM needs to produce better conventional small cars. Grade A genius right there. After all who can disagree with advice like “make better cars, duh!”

Seriously what would save GM? GM is too weak to push for cutting-edge tech like the Volt. Honda or Toyota, with piles of cash in reserve, can subsidize such a program for a few years while it’s developed into something affordable. GM doesn’t have the cash for that, and the car will cost much too much at the start to be a big seller. GM needs to stick to basic technology: four cylinder engines with superchargers. They can strike a balance between fuel efficiency and power with that. They should also stick a toe into the diesel auto market. There are few options for car owners to drive a diesel. GM could instantly get buzz in the press by serving this neglected market. Best of all it’s with technology they’ve been using for decades. They’ll just need to downsize those truck engines to fit into a car frame. That’s no snap of the fingers, but it’s got to be easier than creating an electric vehicle.

But what’s under the hood doesn’t really sell cars. GM needs a whole new design language. They lack the reputation for reliability that the Japanese have, so they can’t get away with producing boring cars. GM needs to excite people again. I think this is GM’s greatest challenge. Ford is going through similar product problems, but they have acclaimed car designs in Europe. Ford can simply bring those designs over here. GM doesn’t have anything overseas they can plunder for ideas. They really do have to create a design revolution. I wish I could offer something more constructive, but I’m no designer. I don’t know enough to contribute. All I can say is most of the current designs are dull (although I do want to come back and mention some GM products I do enjoy).

GM’s future is in doubt, but the demise of the Volt should not be mourned. Conservatives, don’t waste your time lamenting it. It’s for the best.