In the first decade of the 19th century the United States and Mexico reached out to one another to initiate diplomacy, trade, and cultural borrowings. Each faced the task of decolonization and nation-building. The United States envisioned opportunities in Mexico for expansion; Mexico looked to the United States to learn how to recover from war, how to come together in peacetime, and how to write a constitution. This book explores the political and cultural history of Mexico at the time of its independence from Spain. At the center of the study are letters written to the Philadelphia book publisher Mathew Carey by Thomas Robeson, a book agent Carey sent to Mexico in 1822. Author Nanncy Vogeley demonstrates the important role that the inter-American book trade played in the formation of postcolonial national identities in the Americas and casts a new light on the historical interconnections between print capitalism and nationalism. Illus.