08 March 2010

Miscellaneous Musing #20

As an historian, I think one can argue that the purchase of Alaska was indeed "Seward's folly."  The investment has repaid itself many times over, thanks to the discovery there of both gold and petroleum (and Sarah Palin), but in 1867 no one knew that the future State contained those resources; furthermore, this transaction meant that the USA, still under a century old, gobbled up thousands-more square miles of faraway territory without having the resources to defend or even adequately govern the area.