Empire by Invitation: William Walker and Manifest Destiny in Central America by Michel Gobat (review)
Michel Gobat’s extensively researched and well-argued interrogation of William Walker’s failed imperial venture in Nicaragua, seeks to place this often overlooked historical episode into the broader narrative of US imperial expansion. Gobat examines a myriad of primary sources, most importantly the pro-Walker newspaper El Nicaragüense, which allows him to reconsider slavery’s role in defining Walker’s imperial ambitions. Walker decreed slavery legal on September 22, 1856, countering the actions of Nicaragua’s Constituent Assembly, which had abolished slavery in 1824.