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This concluding chapter argues that the 1820s was a critical time in the relationship between the United States and Haiti, a time when each exerted influence on the other that had the potential to change their respective histories even more radically. During this decade, Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer concentrated on U.S. relations in his work to improve the standing of his nation and opened up the island to African American emigrants as a gambit to strengthen his case for diplomatic recognition from the United States. Boyer's emigration plan found support among a diverse group of Americans, from abolitionists to black-community leaders to hard-nosed businessmen who all saw profit in the enterprise for different reasons. Ultimately, the project had a lasting effect on thousands of emigrants; on the black communities of Boston, Philadelphia, and New York; on Haitian-American relations; and on African American political discourse.

This chapter aims to distinguish the various meanings of American exceptionalism and clarifies what we might mean when we invoke this phrase. It also discusses what the American exceptionalism concept implies for the study of crime and punishment. To begin, the chapter first presents a preliminary discussion on the concept and its meanings. It then examines American exceptionalism by means of a close analysis of a specific penal phenomenon that is often invoked as proof that the United States is, indeed, exceptional: America’s retention of capital punishment into the twenty-first century. Here, the chapter argues that while America’s current stance on capital punishment may be anomalous in international terms, it is not an instance of American exceptionalism.

This chapter focuses on the wartime congressional experience, which reflected an important shift in American foreign policy. During the Second World War, support for deep American engagement with the world, once confined to a narrow circle of internationalist elites, replaced isolationism as the dominant paradigm in American political discourse. The long debates and introduction of bills on postwar foreign policy in Congress during the summer and fall of 1943 revealed a sea change toward congressional support for an active postwar foreign policy and extensive commitments around the world. This change in Congress reflected the shift in American opinion as the isolationists and noninterventionists lost the national debate on the country's future.

This chapter shows that, although antifascism had been a subject of Left literature since the 1930s, it was only at the beginning of World War II that women’s relationship to fascism became a subject of discussion. Women began writing stories about women’s roles in antifascist struggles and outlining the dangers of fascist control for women. The battle against Nazism had also been about ending oppression against women. Many women writers championed images of women as antifascist fighters, both in the United States and internationally. Party women argued that the emerging domestic ideology in the United States after the Second World War was similar to that of Hitler’s Germany. During the postwar era, American political discourse was defined by a policy of containment.

This chapter details how the year 1864 allowed William T. Sherman to operate for the first time not as a subordinate commander but as director of a series of armies in the field. His contribution to overall Union strategy would be significant and thus he began to exercise command at the level military analysts currently refer to as the operational level of war. Such a level links tactics and methods of fighting with strategy, in the overall scheme. It defines the manner in which armies organize in discrete campaigns and seek to fulfill the object of strategy by winning victories. Sherman’s performance overall needs to be considered by taking all aspects into account. As he began to work at the higher levels of the military art, he began to change the way in which people think and talk about war, and he propounded an individual philosophy of war. The higher he progressed, the more Sherman could not avoid confronting the harsh realities of political life, for his campaigns increasingly had an impact not just on American political discourse but indeed in 1864 on the outcome of the presidential election. Sherman expressed clear-cut political views and expounded them perhaps too forcefully. This complex mix worked as a catalyst in developing his ideas about war and his ability to put them into practice.