The Rise of the United States

The focus on domestic development played a very important role in the rise of the united states. It also meant that the united states largely rose in an unmolested fashion. People left it alone. And so the strategy of being left alone to enjoy the natural security of flanking oceans was seen as threatening by european powers. So threatening, in fact, that the british and french actually sided with the south during the civil war because they preferred that there be two americas rather than one.