Lamenting that the once widely followed adventurer, William Walker (1824-1860) of Tennessee, has faded into historical obscurity in his own country, in contrast to his enduring notoriety in Central America, the author’s apparent objective is to reintroduce Walker to the North American public. In this brief narrative biography, the author reviews Walker’s background as the first-born of a successful Nashville businessman, his university education in Nashville, Philadelphia, and Europe, and his varied experiences in medicine, law, journalism, and politics in New Orleans and California prior to 1853. Commandeering most of the text are Walker’s headline-grabbing political and military exploits as would-be empire builder in Baja California and Sonora in 1853-1854 and in Central America between 1855 and 1860 where he managed to capture the presidency of Nicaragua before succumbing to the combined opposition of all five Central American states, Britain, Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Buchanan administration. An estimated 150 contemporary sketches, photographs, and documents are interspersed, comprising more than a third of the text.
Unfortunately, there is little in this book to commend it to the scholar. Without footnotes but apparently relying heavily on previously published biographies of Walker, it neither employs new primary sources, nor discloses new data, nor offers new interpretations. There is, for example, no new light on the enigmatic Walker’s motives and objectives or his political, military, and economic impact on Mexico and Central America. The serious reader’s time would be far better spent consulting the studies by William Scroggs and Robert May.
