Leading personalities, civilian and military, Mexican and American, are given incisive and fair evaluations. The coming of war is seen as unavoidable, given American expansion and Mexican resistance to loss of territory, compounded by the fact that neither side understood the other.

Originally published: New York : Macmillan, 1974. "A Bison book." Includes maps of: Mouth of the Rio Grande; Battle of Palo Alto; Battle of Resaca de la Palma; Northern Theater of War; Battle of Monterrey; New Mexico; California; Saltillo and Vicinity; Battle of Buena Vista; Veracruz and Vicinity; Central Mexico; Battle of Cerro Gordo; Mexico City and Vicinity; Battles of Contreras and Churubusco; Battles of Mexico.

Imperial America - The Failure of Graduated Pressure - Taylor in Texas - The Roar of Guns Along the Rio Grande - The Declaration of War - The Monterrey Campaign - The Naval War in the Gulf of Mexico, 1846 - The Army of the West - THe Chichuahua Expeditions - California Conquest - California Lost and Regained - The War in the North after Monterrey - The Veracruz Expedition - Into the Valley of Mexico - On to Mexico City - The fall of Mexico City - Mexico Occupied - Politics and Mr. Polks' War - Peace at Last.