"This book looks at America's initial rise to power and considers what made its relatively short path to hemispheric dominance possible. However, it does so within a continental context, and therefore begins with the conquest of the Aztec Empire of Mexico by Spain's Hernando Cortés. But unlike a typical history survey, this book tracks and measures over time the sources of social power - the abilities of a particular society "to get things done," in the archaeologist and historian Ian Morris's apt formulation, including the projection of military force. And it has tried to do so by placing America's rise in a continental as well as a transatlantic context"-- Provided by publisher.