The Purchase of the Danish West Indies
America bought the Virgin Islands in 1917, and the deal was mostly about keeping Germany out.
Charles Callan Tansill traces the decades of negotiation by which the United States acquired the Danish West Indies, now the US Virgin Islands. The recurring theme is strategic anxiety: the islands mattered less for themselves than for who else might take them, and the purchase was driven largely by the prospect of a German foothold in the Caribbean.
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Tyler Cowen
Charles Callan Tansill, The Purchase of the Danish West Indies. Who would have thought that this 1966 volume, and Tansill, would be making a comeback? The biggest lesson for me here was how much the purchase was a live issue as early as 1867.
Source · February 2025
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