This work offers a history of the Pacific as a frontier of the United States using economics, politics, and culture as its central areas of consideration. While many studies have analyzed specific regions within the Pacific, this work considers the whole of this vast ocean and its coasts as a single unit of study. In broadening the scope of analysis, one of the author's primary aims is to expand American understanding of the term frontier to include the Pacific and its nations. It covers periods stretching from 1784, the year the first ship flying the American flag reached China, to 1867, the...