Lindsay Schakenbach Regele
Author
Publisher
The University of Chicago Press
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
"Joel Roberts Poinsett is one of those figures who show up all across the expanding United States in the early nineteenth century. His career culminated as Secretary of War but also encompassed time as a secret agent in South America, ambassador to Mexico, South Carolina state legislator, and US Congressman-as well as as a naturalist and namesake of the poinsettia, which he stole from Mexico. While Poinsett was not an ideologue with a master plan,...