This is a select bibliography of academic level books and journal articles, published mainly after World War II, about the history of the Mexican–American War and its historical context.

The Mexican–American War (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848), known in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still claimed as its territory, and a dispute over the border: Texas and the U.S. asserted the Rio Grande, Mexico the more northerly Nueces River. President James K. Polk, elected in 1844 on a platform of territorial expansion, offered $25million for the disputed land and California; Mexico refused. He then sent troops into the disputed territory, where Mexican forces repelled them on April 25, 1846, giving Polk grounds to obtain a declaration of war from Congress.

U.S. forces occupied Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California, the Pacific Squadron blockaded Mexico's Pacific coast, and Major General Winfield Scott landed at Veracruz and captured Mexico City in September 1847. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, negotiated by Nicholas Trist after Polk had recalled him, ended the war: Mexico ceded the territory of present-day California, Nevada, and Utah and parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, gave up its claims on Texas, and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border with the United States, while the U.S. paid $15million and assumed $3.25million of Mexican debt to U.S. citizens. The acquisitions intensified the American debate over slavery and are seen by some scholars as a step toward the American Civil War, in which many officers who had gained experience in Mexico later held prominent commands. Mexico was left with heavy casualties, ruined finances, political turmoil, lost prestige, and the loss of more than half its territory.

Works listed here are cited in the notes or bibliographies of scholarly sources. Each is published by an academic or major press, written by a recognized expert, or substantially reviewed in scholarly journals; borderline cases are omitted. A selection of primary sources are included. Many of the books below carry their own bibliographies; see the Further reading section for other bibliographies, and the External links section for historical sites, academic sites, and museums.

Citations follow APA style. Book have citations to academic journal or mainstream published reviews when available. For books only partly about the subject, relevant chapter or section titles are provided when useful and available. Translators of the original-language edition are included when possible. In cases where a title or name has appeared with more than one English spelling, the most recent published form is used and a footnote documents any earlier title under which the work appeared.

Surveys Bauer, K. J. (1974). The Mexican War, 1846–1848. Macmillan. Bill, A. H. (1947). Rehearsal for conflict: The war with Mexico, 1846–1848. Alfred A. Knopf. DeVoto, B. (1943). The year of decision: 1846. Little, Brown. Eisenhower, J. S. D. (1989). So far from God: The U.S. war with Mexico, 1846–1848. Random House. Greenberg, A. S. (2012). A wicked war: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. invasion of Mexico. Knopf. Guardino, P. (2017). The dead march: A history of the Mexican-American War. Harvard University Press. Henderson, T. J. (2007). A glorious defeat: Mexico and its war with the United States. Hill and Wang. Merry, R. W. (2009). A country of vast designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the conquest of the American continent. Simon & Schuster. Singletary, O. A. (1960). The Mexican War. University of Chicago Press. Smith, J. H. (1919). The war with Mexico (Vols. 1–2). Macmillan. Vol. 1; Vol. 2. Stephenson, N. W. (1921). Texas and the Mexican War: A chronicle of the winning of the Southwest. Yale University Press. Wheelan, J. (2007). Invading Mexico: America's continental dream and the Mexican War, 1846–1848. Carroll & Graf.

Background and context

Barker, E. C. (1917). California as the cause of the Mexican War. Texas Review, 2(3), 213–221. Brack, G. M. (1975). Mexico views Manifest Destiny, 1821–1846: An essay on the origins of the Mexican War. University of New Mexico Press. DeLay, B. (2008). War of a thousand deserts: Indian raids and the U.S.-Mexican War. Yale University Press. Frymer, P. (2017). Building an American empire: The era of territorial and political expansion. Princeton University Press. Graebner, N. A. (1955). Empire on the Pacific: A study in American continental expansion. Ronald Press. Graebner, N. A. (1980). The Mexican War: A study in causation. Pacific Historical Review, 49(3), 405–426. Greenberg, A. S. (2005). Manifest manhood and the antebellum American empire. Cambridge University Press. Haynes, S. W., & Morris, C. (Eds.). (1997). Manifest Destiny and empire: American antebellum expansionism. Texas A&M University Press. Hietala, T. R. (1985). Manifest design: Anxious aggrandizement in late Jacksonian America. Cornell University Press. Horsman, R. (1981). Race and Manifest Destiny: The origins of American racial Anglo-Saxonism. Harvard University Press. Howe, D. W. (2007). What hath God wrought: The transformation of America, 1815–1848. Oxford University Press. Jonas, P. M. (1992). William Parrott, American claims, and the Mexican War. Journal of the Early Republic, 12(2), 213–240. Maltz, E. M. (2006). The Constitution and the annexation of Texas. Constitutional Commentary, 23(3), 381. McAfee, W. (1980). A reconsideration of the origins of the Mexican-American War. Southern California Quarterly, 62(1), 49–65. Merk, F. (1963). Manifest Destiny and mission in American history: A reinterpretation. Alfred A. Knopf. Pletcher, D. M. (1973). The diplomacy of annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War. University of Missouri Press. Price, G. W. (1967). Origins of the war with Mexico: The Polk-Stockton intrigue. University of Texas Press. Reséndez, A. (2005). Changing national identities at the frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800–1850. Cambridge University Press. Rugemer, E. B. (2007). Robert Monroe Harrison, British abolition, Southern Anglophobia and Texas annexation. Slavery & Abolition, 28(2), 169–191. Silbey, J. H. (2005). Storm over Texas: The annexation controversy and the road to Civil War. Oxford University Press. Smith, G. A. (1987). The war that wasn't: Thomas ap Catesby Jones's seizure of Monterey. California History, 66(2), 104–113. Stenberg, R. R. (1935). The failure of Polk's Mexican War intrigue of 1845. Pacific Historical Review, 4(1), 39–68. Stenberg, R. R. (1938). Polk and Frémont, 1845–1846. Pacific Historical Review, 7(3), 211–227. Stenburg, R. R. (1941). President Polk and California: Additional documents. Pacific Historical Review, 10(2), 217–219. Stephanson, A. (1995). Manifest Destiny: American expansionism and the empire of right. Hill and Wang. Torget, A. J. (2015). Seeds of empire: Cotton, slavery, and the transformation of the Texas borderlands, 1800–1850. University of North Carolina Press. Weber, D. J. (1982). The Mexican frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest under Mexico. University of New Mexico Press. Weeks, W. E. (1996). Building the continental empire: American expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War. Ivan R. Dee.

Politics

Borit, G. S. (1974). Lincoln's opposition to the Mexican War. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 67(1), 79–100. Brent, R. A. (1954). Nicholas P. Trist and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 57(4), 454–474. Chamberlin, E. K. (1963). Nicholas Trist and Baja California. Pacific Historical Review, 32(1), 49–63. Drexler, R. W. (1991). Guilty of making peace: A biography of Nicholas P. Trist. University Press of America. Foner, E. (1969). The Wilmot Proviso revisited. The Journal of American History, 56(2), 262. Gatell, F. O. (1958). "Conscience and judgment": The bolt of the Massachusetts Conscience Whigs. The Historian, 21(1), 18–45. Gatell, F. O. (1958). Palfrey's vote, the Conscience Whigs, and the election of Speaker Winthrop. The New England Quarterly, 31(2), 218. Gilley, B. H. (1979). "Polk's War" and the Louisiana press. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, 20(1), 5–23. Gilley, B. H. (1981). Tennessee Whigs and the Mexican War. Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 40(1), 46–67. Graebner, N. A. (1953). Party politics and the Trist mission. Journal of Southern History, 19(2), 137–156. Hicks, R. S. (1922). Diplomatic relations with Mexico during the administration of James K. Polk. Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, 12(2), 5–17. Lander, E. M., Jr. (1980). Reluctant imperialists: Calhoun, the South Carolinians, and the Mexican War. Louisiana State University Press. Maltz, E. M. (2006). The Constitution and the annexation of Texas. Constitutional Commentary, 23(3), 381. Merk, F. (1969). Dissent in the Mexican War. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 81, 120–136. Miles, E. A. (1957). "Fifty-four forty or fight"—An American political legend. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 44(2), 291. Morrison, M. A. (1997). Slavery and the American West: The eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the coming of the Civil War. University of North Carolina Press. Neely, M. E., Jr. (1981). War and partisanship: What Lincoln learned from James K. Polk. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 74(3), 199–216. Nelson, A. K. (1972). The secret diplomacy of James K. Polk during the Mexican War, 1846–1847 [Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. Nelson, A. K. (1988). Secret agents: President Polk and the search for peace with Mexico. Garland Publishing. Nortrup, J. (1968). Nicholas Trist's mission to Mexico: A reinterpretation. Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 71(3), 321–346. Ohrt, W. (1997). Defiant peacemaker: Nicholas Trist in the Mexican War. Texas A&M University Press. Pinheiro, J. C. (2003). "Religion without restriction": Anti-Catholicism, All Mexico, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Journal of the Early Republic, 23(1), 69. Pinheiro, J. C. (2007). Manifest ambition: James K. Polk and civil-military relations during the Mexican War. Praeger Security International. Pletcher, D. M. (1973). The diplomacy of annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War. University of Missouri Press. Rugemer, E. B. (2007). Robert Monroe Harrison, British abolition, Southern Anglophobia and Texas annexation. Slavery & Abolition, 28(2), 169–191. Schroeder, J. H. (1973). Mr. Polk's war: American opposition and dissent, 1846–1848. University of Wisconsin Press. Sellers, C. G. (1966). James K. Polk, continentalist, 1843–1846. Princeton University Press. Silbey, J. H. (2005). Storm over Texas: The annexation controversy and the road to Civil War. Oxford University Press. Sperber, H. (1957). "Fifty-four forty or fight": Facts and fictions. American Speech, 32(1), 5. Stegmaier, M. J. (1996). Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850: Boundary dispute and sectional crisis. Kent State University Press.

Military campaigns and commanders

Bauer, K. J. (1985). Zachary Taylor: Soldier, planter, statesman of the Old Southwest. Louisiana State University Press. DePalo, W. A., Jr. (1997). The Mexican national army, 1822–1852. Texas A&M University Press. Foos, P. (2002). A short, offhand, killing affair: Soldiers and social conflict during the Mexican-American War. University of North Carolina Press. Guardino, P. (2022). The constant recurrence of such atrocities: Guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency during the Mexican-American War. The Journal of the Civil War Era, 12(1), 3–27.