About this item
In the decade before the onset of the Civil War, groups of Americans engaged in a series of longshot - and illegal - forays into Mexico, Cuba, and other Central American countries in hopes of taking them over. These efforts became known as filibustering, and their goal was to seize territory to create new independent fiefdoms, which would ultimately be annexed by the still-growing United States. Most failed miserably. William Walker was the outlier. Short, slender, and soft-spoken with no military background - he trained as a doctor before becoming a lawyer and then a newspaper editor - Walker was an unlikely leader of rough-hewn men and adventurers. But in 1856 he managed to install himself as president of Nicaragua. Neighboring governments saw Walker as a risk to the region and worked together to drive him out - efforts aided, incongruously, by the United States' original tycoon, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
About the Author
A veteran journalist and member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board, Martelle also writes books primarily about overlooked people and events from history. His newest is . Previous works include (2012) , about the rise and tremendous fall of a once-great American city; (2011) , about the first of the Cold War-era Smith Act anti-communist trials, and (2007) , about a coal strike that left more than 75 people dead in showdowns between miners and the Colorado state militia that didn't end until the U.S. Army was sent in as peacekeepers. .Martelle's journalism and book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Sierra Magazine, Los Angeles magazine, Orange Coast magazine and other outlets. He has taught journalism and writing at Chapman University and the University of California-Irvine, and is a regular panelist or moderator at literary, journalism and labor history conferences, guest lecturer at colleges, and has been featured on C-SPAN's Book TV. Martelle also is a co-founder of , a group of freelance journalists.
