Inner Asian Frontiers: Chinese and Russian Margins of Expansion

The American tradition emphasizes the importance of sea power, especially the great age of sea power which began with Columbus and led first to the expansion of Spain and Portugal and then to the empire building of England, Holland, and France, and the development of North America. In America itself we are also familiar with the epic march across the continent to the Pacific, and the way in which the expanding frontier shaped, or at least strongly influenced, our society and our institutions, as expounded by Turner. Even our continental history, however, was initiated by the crossing of the Atlantic; and from then on even our period of most active continental expansion was never free of the influences and effects of sea power, sea-borne commerce, the investment of European capital, and acceleration of population growth by the immigration of Europeans.