Fourth Kingdom

Charts the founding of the American Empire.The Fourth Kingdom is the second volume in a series of books, The Personality of American Power, tracing the distinctive continuities in the American way of war and strategy-making. A handful of themes emerge: securing the continuity and legitimacy of the Anglo-American regime; grounding the use of state power in political principles and ideology; calculating security interests in a fully global geopolitical context; seeing the path to great-power status as leading to westward, transatlantic expansion; differing strategic views between the imperial frontier and the metropolis; and an ongoing contest between advocates of a "e;blue-water,"e; maritime, "e;off-shore balancing"e; approach to both colonial and continental affairs and promoters of direct engagement to achieve a favorable great-power balance. Seeing the North American colonies as a developing "e;Fourth Kingdom"e; adds a new dimension to the dominant "e;three-kingdoms"e; historiography of the tumultuous Stuart and Cromwellian years. Between the founding of the Jamestown colony and the carving-out of "e;Penn's Woods"e; seven decades later, English settlers came to control the critical seaports of North America, all but excluding other European powers.