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| history of american imperialism: How to Hide an Empire Daniel Immerwahr, 2019-02-19 Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories—the islands, atolls, and archipelagos—this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century’s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history. |
| history of american imperialism: Empire for Liberty Richard H. Immerman, 2010 How could the United States, a nation founded on the principles of liberty and equality, have produced Abu Ghraib, torture memos, Plamegate, and warrantless wiretaps? Did America set out to become an empire? And if so, how has it reconciled its imperialism--and in some cases, its crimes--with the idea of liberty so forcefully expressed in the Declaration of Independence? Empire for Liberty tells the story of men who used the rhetoric of liberty to further their imperial ambitions, and reveals that the quest for empire has guided the nation's architects from the very beginning--and continues to do so today. |
| history of american imperialism: American Imperialism Adam Burns, 2017-01-17 Provides a critical re-evaluation of US territorial expansionism and imperialism from 1783 to the presentThe United States has been described by many of its foreign and domestic critics as an aempirea Providing a wide-ranging analysis of the United States as a territorial, imperial power from its foundation to the present day, this book explores the United States acquisition or long-term occupation of territories through a chronological perspective. It begins by exploring early continental expansion, such as the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803, and traces US imperialism through to the controversial ongoing presence of US forces at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The book provides fresh insights into the history of US territorial expansion and imperialism, bringing together more well-known instances (such as the purchase of Alaska) with those less-frequently discussed (such as the acquisition of the Guano Islands after 1856). The volume considers key historical debates, controversies and turning points, providing a historiographically-grounded re-evaluation of US expansion from 1783 to the present day.Key FeaturesProvides case studies of different examples of US territorial expansion/imperialism, and adds much-needed context to ongoing debates over US imperialism for students of both History and PoliticsAnalyses many of the better known instances of US imperialism (for example, Cuba and the Philippines), while also considering often-overlooked examples such as the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa and GuamExplores American imperialism from a aterritorial acquisition/long-term occupationa viewpoint which differentiates it from many other books that instead focus on informal and economic imperialismDiscusses the presence of the US in key places such as Guantanamo Bay, the Panama Canal Zone and the Arctic |
| history of american imperialism: The Forging of the American Empire Sidney Lens, 2003-06-20 From Mexico to Vietnam, from Nicaragua to Lebanon, and more recently to Kosovo, East Timor and now Iraq, the United States has intervened in the affairs of other nations. Yet American leaders continue to promote the myth that America is benevolent and peace-loving, and involves itself in conflicts only to defend the rights of others; excesses and cruelties, though sometimes admitted, usually are regarded as momentary aberrations.This classic book is the first truly comprehensive history of American imperialism. Now fully updated, and featuring a new introduction by Howard Zinn, it is a must-read for all students and scholars of American history. Renowned author Sidney Lens shows how the United States, from the time it gained its own independence, has used every available means - political, economic, and military - to dominate other nations.Lens presents a powerful argument, meticulously pieced together from a huge array of sources, to prove that imperialism is an inevitable consequence of the U.S. economic system. Surveying the pressures, external and internal, on the United States today, he concludes that like any other empire, the reign of the U.S. will end -- and he examines how this time of reckoning may come about. |
| history of american imperialism: A People's History of American Empire Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, Paul Buhle, 2008-04 Adapted from the critically acclaimed chronicle of U.S. history, a study of American expansionism around the world is told from a grassroots perspective and provides an analysis of important events from Wounded Knee to Iraq. |
| history of american imperialism: The True Flag Stephen Kinzer, 2017-01-24 The public debate over American interventionism at the dawn of the 20th century is vividly brought to life in this “engaging, well-focused history” (Kirkus, starred review). |
| history of american imperialism: American Imperialism and the State, 1893–1921 Colin D. Moore, 2017-04-17 How did the acquisition of overseas colonies affect the development of the American state? How did the constitutional system shape the expansion and governance of American empire? American Imperialism and the State offers a new perspective on these questions by recasting American imperial governance as an episode of state building. Colin D. Moore argues that the empire was decisively shaped by the efforts of colonial state officials to achieve greater autonomy in the face of congressional obstruction, public indifference and limitations on administrative capacity. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book focuses principally upon four cases of imperial governance - Hawai'i, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Haiti - to highlight the essential tension between American mass democracy and imperial expansion. |
| history of american imperialism: Visualizing American Empire David Brody, 2010-09 Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-203) and index. |
| history of american imperialism: The Folly of Empire John B. Judis, 2006-06-15 A century ago, the Theodore Roosevelt administration believed building an American empire was the only way the U.S. could ensure its role in the world, but came to see the occupation of the Philippines as America's heel of Achilles. Woodrow Wilson, shocked by the failure of American intervention in Mexico and by the outbreak of World War I, came to see imperialism as the underlying cause of war and set about trying to create an international system to eliminate empires. But, the current Bush administration, despite the lessons of the past, has revived the older dreams of American empire--under the guise of democracy--even touting the American experience in the Philippines as a success upon which the United States could build in attempting to transform the Middle East. With The Folly of Empire, John B. Judis shows that history can teach us lessons and allow political leaders, if sensitive to history, to change their strategy in order to avoid past mistakes. Judis shows how presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton drew upon what Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson learned about the pitfalls of using American power unilaterally to carve out a world in America's image. Exercising leadership through international institutions and alliances, the United States was able to win the Cold War and the first Gulf War. But by ignoring these lessons, the Bush administration has created a quagmire of terror and ethnic conflict. By examining America's role in the international community--then and now--The Folly of Empire is a sharp and compelling critique of America's current foreign policy and offers a direct challenge to neo-conservatives. |
| history of american imperialism: Empire for Liberty Richard H. Immerman, 2010-04-05 The men who spoke of liberty to shape an American empire How could the United States, a nation founded on the principles of liberty and equality, have produced Abu Ghraib, torture memos, Plamegate, and warrantless wiretaps? Did America set out to become an empire? And if so, how has it reconciled its imperialism—and in some cases, its crimes—with the idea of liberty so forcefully expressed in the Declaration of Independence? Empire for Liberty tells the story of men who used the rhetoric of liberty to further their imperial ambitions, and reveals that the quest for empire has guided the nation's architects from the very beginning--and continues to do so today. Historian Richard Immerman paints nuanced portraits of six exceptional public figures who manifestly influenced the course of American empire: Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Seward, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Foster Dulles, and Paul Wolfowitz. Each played a pivotal role as empire builder and, with the exception of Adams, did so without occupying the presidency. Taking readers from the founding of the republic to the Global War on Terror, Immerman shows how each individual's influence arose from a keen sensitivity to the concerns of his times; how the trajectory of American empire was relentless if not straight; and how these shrewd and powerful individuals shaped their rhetoric about liberty to suit their needs. But as Immerman demonstrates in this timely and provocative book, liberty and empire were on a collision course. And in the Global War on Terror and the occupation of Iraq, they violently collided. |
| history of american imperialism: American Empire A. G. Hopkins, 2019-08-27 Compelling, provocative, and learned. This book is a stunning and sophisticated reevaluation of the American empire. Hopkins tells an old story in a truly new way--American history will never be the same again.--Jeremi Suri, author of The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office.Office. |
| history of american imperialism: A Nation Without Borders Steven Hahn, 2016-11-01 A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian’s breathtakingly original (Junot Diaz) reinterpretation of the eight decades surrounding the Civil War. Capatious [and] buzzing with ideas. --The Boston Globe Volume 3 in the Penguin History of the United States, edited by Eric Foner In this ambitious story of American imperial conquest and capitalist development, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Steven Hahn takes on the conventional histories of the nineteenth century and offers a perspective that promises to be as enduring as it is controversial. It begins and ends in Mexico and, throughout, is internationalist in orientation. It challenges the political narrative of “sectionalism,” emphasizing the national footing of slavery and the struggle between the northeast and Mississippi Valley for continental supremacy. It places the Civil War in the context of many domestic rebellions against state authority, including those of Native Americans. It fully incorporates the trans-Mississippi west, suggesting the importance of the Pacific to the imperial vision of political leaders and of the west as a proving ground for later imperial projects overseas. It reconfigures the history of capitalism, insisting on the centrality of state formation and slave emancipation to its consolidation. And it identifies a sweeping era of “reconstructions” in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that simultaneously laid the foundations for corporate liberalism and social democracy. The era from 1830 to 1910 witnessed massive transformations in how people lived, worked, thought about themselves, and struggled to thrive. It also witnessed the birth of economic and political institutions that still shape our world. From an agricultural society with a weak central government, the United States became an urban and industrial society in which government assumed a greater and greater role in the framing of social and economic life. As the book ends, the United States, now a global economic and political power, encounters massive warfare between imperial powers in Europe and a massive revolution on its southern border―the remarkable Mexican Revolution―which together brought the nineteenth century to a close while marking the important themes of the twentieth. |
| history of american imperialism: American Insurgents Richard Seymour, 2012-06-12 Seymour's obsessively researched, impressive first book holds its place as the most authoritative historical analysis of its kind.—Resurgence All empires spin self-serving myths, and in the United States the most potent of these is that America is a force for democracy around the world. Yet there is a tradition of American anti-imperialism which gives the lie to this mythology. Richard Seymour examines this complex relationship from the Revolution to the present-day. Richard Seymour is a socialist writer and runs the blog Lenin's Tomb. He is the author of The Liberal Defense of Murder. His articles have appeared in the Guardian and New Statesman. |
| history of american imperialism: American Slavery, American Imperialism Catherine Armstrong, 2020-07-30 Slavery casts a long shadow over American history; despite the cataclysmic changes of the Civil War and emancipation, the United States carried antebellum notions of slavery into its imperial expansion at the turn of the twentieth-century. African American, Chinese and other immigrant labourers were exploited in the name of domestic economic development, and overseas, local populations were made into colonial subjects of America. How did the U.S. deal with the paradox of presenting itself as a global power which abhorred slavery, while at the same time failing to deal with forced labour at home? Catherine Armstrong argues that this was done with rhetorical manoeuvres around the definition of slavery. Drawing primarily on representations of slavery in American print culture, this study charts how definitions and depictions of slavery both changed and stayed the same as the nation became a prominent actor on the world stage. In doing so, Armstrong challenges the idea that slavery is a merely historical problem, and shows its relevance in the contemporary world. |
| history of american imperialism: Cultures of United States Imperialism Amy Kaplan, Donald E. Pease, 1993 Cultures of United States Imperialism represents a major paradigm shift that will remap the field of American Studies. Pointing to a glaring blind spot in the basic premises of the study of American culture, leading critics and theorists in cultural studies, history, anthropology, and literature reveal the denial of empire at the heart of American Studies. Challenging traditional definitions and periodizations of imperialism, this volume shows how international relations reciprocally shape a dominant imperial culture at home and how imperial relations are enacted and contested within the United States. Drawing on a broad range of interpretive practices, these essays range across American history, from European representations of the New World to the mass media spectacle of the Persian Gulf War. The volume breaks down the boundary between the study of foreign relations and American culture to examine imperialism as an internal process of cultural appropriation and as an external struggle over international power. The contributors explore how the politics of continental and international expansion, conquest, and resistance have shaped the history of American culture just as much as the cultures of those it has dominated. By uncovering the dialectical relationship between American cultures and international relations, this collection demonstrates the necessity of analyzing imperialism as a political or economic process inseparable from the social relations and cultural representations of gender, race, ethnicity, and class at home. Contributors. Lynda Boose, Mary Yoko Brannen, Bill Brown, William Cain, Eric Cheyfitz, Vicente Diaz, Frederick Errington, Kevin Gaines, Deborah Gewertz, Donna Haraway, Susan Jeffords, Myra Jehlen, Amy Kaplan, Eric Lott, Walter Benn Michaels, Donald E. Pease, Vicente Rafael, Michael Rogin, José David Saldívar, Richard Slotkin, Doris Sommer, Gauri Viswanathan, Priscilla Wald, Kenneth Warren, Christopher P. Wilson |
| history of american imperialism: Building an American Empire Paul Frymer, 2019-07-16 How American westward expansion was governmentally engineered to promote the formation of a white settler nation Westward expansion of the United States is most conventionally remembered for rugged individualism, geographic isolationism, and a fair amount of luck. Yet the establishment of the forty-eight contiguous states was hardly a foregone conclusion, and the federal government played a critical role in its success. This book examines the politics of American expansion, showing how the government's regulation of population movements on the frontier, both settlement and removal, advanced national aspirations for empire and promoted the formation of a white settler nation. Building an American Empire details how a government that struggled to exercise plenary power used federal land policy to assert authority over the direction of expansion by engineering the pace and patterns of settlement and to control the movement of populations. At times, the government mobilized populations for compact settlement in strategically important areas of the frontier; at other times, policies were designed to actively restrain settler populations in order to prevent violence, international conflict, and breakaway states. Paul Frymer examines how these settlement patterns helped construct a dominant racial vision for America by incentivizing and directing the movement of white European settlers onto indigenous and diversely populated lands. These efforts were hardly seamless, and Frymer pays close attention to the failures as well, from the lack of further expansion into Latin America to the defeat of the black colonization movement. Building an American Empire reveals the lasting and profound significance government settlement policies had for the nation, both for establishing America as dominantly white and for restricting broader aspirations for empire in lands that could not be so racially engineered. |
| history of american imperialism: Race over Empire Eric T. L. Love, 2005-10-12 Generations of historians have maintained that in the last decade of the nineteenth century white-supremacist racial ideologies such as Anglo-Saxonism, social Darwinism, benevolent assimilation, and the concept of the white man's burden drove American imperialist ventures in the nonwhite world. In Race over Empire, Eric T. L. Love contests this view and argues that racism had nearly the opposite effect. From President Grant's attempt to acquire the Dominican Republic in 1870 to the annexations of Hawaii and the Philippines in 1898, Love demonstrates that the imperialists' relationship with the racist ideologies of the era was antagonistic, not harmonious. In a period marked by Jim Crow, lynching, Chinese exclusion, and immigration restriction, Love argues, no pragmatic politician wanted to place nonwhites at the center of an already controversial project by invoking the concept of the white man's burden. Furthermore, convictions that defined whiteness raised great obstacles to imperialist ambitions, particularly when expansionists entered the tropical zone. In lands thought to be too hot for white blood, white Americans could never be the main beneficiaries of empire. What emerges from Love's analysis is a critical reinterpretation of the complex interactions between politics, race, labor, immigration, and foreign relations at the dawn of the American century. |
| history of american imperialism: Overthrow Stephen Kinzer, 2007-02-06 An award-winning author tells the stories of the audacious American politicians, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers of other countries with disastrous long-term consequences. |
| history of american imperialism: Imperialism and the Developing World Atul Kohli, 2020 How did Western imperialism shape the developing world? In Imperialism and the Developing World, Atul Kohli tackles this question by analyzing British and American influence on Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America from the age of the British East India Company to the most recent U.S. war in Iraq. He argues that both Britain and the U.S. expanded to enhance their national economic prosperity, and shows how Anglo-American expansionism hurt economic development in poor parts of the world. To clarify the causes and consequences of modern imperialism, Kohli first explains that there are two kinds of empires and analyzes the dynamics of both. Imperialism can refer to a formal, colonial empire such as Britain in the 19th century or an informal empire, wielding significant influence but not territorial control, such as the U.S. in the 20th century. Kohli contends that both have repeatedly undermined the prospects of steady economic progress in the global periphery, though to different degrees. Time and again, the pursuit of their own national economic prosperity led Britain and the U.S. to expand into peripheral areas of the world. Limiting the sovereignty of other states-and poor and weak states on the periphery in particular-was the main method of imperialism. For the British and American empires, this tactic ensured that peripheral economies would stay open and accessible to Anglo-American economic interests. Loss of sovereignty, however, greatly hurt the life chances of people living in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. As Kohli lays bare, sovereignty is an economic asset; it is a precondition for the emergence of states that can foster prosperous and inclusive industrial societies. |
| history of american imperialism: Pulp Empire Paul S. Hirsch, 2024-06-05 Winner of the Popular Culture Association's Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Book in Popular or American Culture In the 1940s and ’50s, comic books were some of the most popular—and most unfiltered—entertainment in the United States. Publishers sold hundreds of millions of copies a year of violent, racist, and luridly sexual comics to Americans of all ages until a 1954 Senate investigation led to a censorship code that nearly destroyed the industry. But this was far from the first time the US government actively involved itself with comics—it was simply the most dramatic manifestation of a long, strange relationship between high-level policy makers and a medium that even artists and writers often dismissed as a creative sewer. In Pulp Empire, Paul S. Hirsch uncovers the gripping untold story of how the US government both attacked and appropriated comic books to help wage World War II and the Cold War, promote official—and clandestine—foreign policy and deflect global critiques of American racism. As Hirsch details, during World War II—and the concurrent golden age of comic books—government agencies worked directly with comic book publishers to stoke hatred for the Axis powers while simultaneously attempting to dispel racial tensions at home. Later, as the Cold War defense industry ballooned—and as comic book sales reached historic heights—the government again turned to the medium, this time trying to win hearts and minds in the decolonizing world through cartoon propaganda. Hirsch’s groundbreaking research weaves together a wealth of previously classified material, including secret wartime records, official legislative documents, and caches of personal papers. His book explores the uneasy contradiction of how comics were both vital expressions of American freedom and unsettling glimpses into the national id—scourged and repressed on the one hand and deployed as official propaganda on the other. Pulp Empire is a riveting illumination of underexplored chapters in the histories of comic books, foreign policy, and race. |
| history of american imperialism: The Search for Order, 1877-1920 Robert H. Wiebe, 2022-12-06 At the end of the Reconstruction, the spread of science and technology, industrialism, urbanization, immigration, and economic depressions eroded Americans' conventional beliefs in individualism and a divinely ordained social system. In The Search for Order, 1877-1920, Robert H. Wiebe shows how, in subsequent years, during the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Americans sought the organizing principles around which a new viable social order could be constructed in the modern world. This subtle and sophisticated study combines the virtues of historical narrative, sociological analysis, and social criticism. |
| history of american imperialism: The Blood of Government Paul A. Kramer, 2006-12-13 In 1899 the United States, having announced its arrival as a world power during the Spanish-Cuban-American War, inaugurated a brutal war of imperial conquest against the Philippine Republic. Over the next five decades, U.S. imperialists justified their colonial empire by crafting novel racial ideologies adapted to new realities of collaboration and anticolonial resistance. In this pathbreaking, transnational study, Paul A. Kramer reveals how racial politics served U.S. empire, and how empire-building in turn transformed ideas of race and nation in both the United States and the Philippines. Kramer argues that Philippine-American colonial history was characterized by struggles over sovereignty and recognition. In the wake of a racial-exterminist war, U.S. colonialists, in dialogue with Filipino elites, divided the Philippine population into civilized Christians and savage animists and Muslims. The former were subjected to a calibrated colonialism that gradually extended them self-government as they demonstrated their capacities. The latter were governed first by Americans, then by Christian Filipinos who had proven themselves worthy of shouldering the white man's burden. Ultimately, however, this racial vision of imperial nation-building collided with U.S. nativist efforts to insulate the United States from its colonies, even at the cost of Philippine independence. Kramer provides an innovative account of the global transformations of race and the centrality of empire to twentieth-century U.S. and Philippine histories. |
| history of american imperialism: Super Imperialism - New Edition Michael Hudson, 2003-01-20 Describes the genesis of America's political and financial domination. - cover. |
| history of american imperialism: America: The New Imperialism Victor G. Kiernan, 2020-05-05 The invasion and occupation of Iraq have sparked considerable discussion about the nature of American imperialism, but most of it is focused on the short term. The classical historical approach of this book provides a convincing and compelling analysis of the different phases of American imperialism, which have now led to America becoming a global hegemon without any serious rivals. Victor Kiernan, one of the world's most respected historians, has used his nuanced knowledge of history, literature and politics to trace the evolution of the American Empire: he includes accounts of relations between Indians and white settlers, readings of the work of Melville and Whitman, and an analysis of the way that money and politics became so closely intertwined. Eric Hobsbawm's preface provides an insight into his own thoughts on American imperialism, and a valuable introduction to Victor Kiernan's work. Together, they shed useful light on today's urgent debates about the uses and misuses of seemingly unlimited military power, a lack of respect for international agreements, and the right to 'pre-emptive defense'. |
| history of american imperialism: The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture Amy Kaplan, 2005-03-15 The United States has always imagined that its identity as a nation is insulated from violent interventions abroad, as if a line between domestic and foreign affairs could be neatly drawn. Yet this book argues that such a distinction, so obviously impracticable in our own global era, has been illusory at least since the war with Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century and the later wars against Spain, Cuba, and the Philippines. In this book, Amy Kaplan shows how U.S. imperialism--from Manifest Destiny to the American Century--has profoundly shaped key elements of American culture at home, and how the struggle for power over foreign peoples and places has disrupted the quest for domestic order. The neatly ordered kitchen in Catherine Beecher's household manual may seem remote from the battlefields of Mexico in 1846, just as Mark Twain's Mississippi may seem distant from Honolulu in 1866, or W. E. B. Du Bois's reports of the East St. Louis Race Riot from the colonization of Africa in 1917. But, as this book reveals, such apparently disparate locations are cast into jarring proximity by imperial expansion. In literature, journalism, film, political speeches, and legal documents, Kaplan traces the undeniable connections between American efforts to quell anarchy abroad and the eruption of such anarchy at the heart of the empire. |
| history of american imperialism: Taking Haiti Mary A. Renda, 2004-07-21 The U.S. invasion of Haiti in July 1915 marked the start of a military occupation that lasted for nineteen years--and fed an American fascination with Haiti that flourished even longer. Exploring the cultural dimensions of U.S. contact with Haiti during the occupation and its aftermath, Mary Renda shows that what Americans thought and wrote about Haiti during those years contributed in crucial and unexpected ways to an emerging culture of U.S. imperialism. At the heart of this emerging culture, Renda argues, was American paternalism, which saw Haitians as wards of the United States. She explores the ways in which diverse Americans--including activists, intellectuals, artists, missionaries, marines, and politicians--responded to paternalist constructs, shaping new versions of American culture along the way. Her analysis draws on a rich record of U.S. discourses on Haiti, including the writings of policymakers; the diaries, letters, songs, and memoirs of marines stationed in Haiti; and literary works by such writers as Eugene O'Neill, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston. Pathbreaking and provocative, Taking Haiti illuminates the complex interplay between culture and acts of violence in the making of the American empire. |
| history of american imperialism: The White Pacific Gerald Horne, 2007-05-31 Worldwide supplies of sugar and cotton were impacted dramatically as the U.S. Civil War dragged on. New areas of production entered these lucrative markets, particularly in the South Pacific, and plantation agriculture grew substantially in disparate areas such as Australia, Fiji, and Hawaii. The increase in production required an increase in labor; in the rush to fill the vacuum, freebooters and other unsavory characters began a slave trade in Melanesians and Polynesians that continued into the twentieth century. The White Pacific ranges over the broad expanse of Oceania to reconstruct the history of blackbirding (slave trading) in the region. It examines the role of U.S. citizens (many of them ex-slaveholders and ex-confederates) in the trade and its roots in Civil War dislocations. What unfolds is a dramatic tale of unfree labor, conflicts between formal and informal empire, white supremacy, threats to sovereignty in Hawaii, the origins of a White Australian policy, and the rise of Japan as a Pacific power and putative protector. It also pieces together a wonderfully suggestive history of the African American presence in the Pacific. Based on deft archival research in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii, the United States, and Great Britain, The White Pacific uncovers a heretofore hidden story of race, labor, war, and intrigue that contributes significantly to the emerging intersectional histories of race and ethnicity. |
| history of american imperialism: Aloha Betrayed Noenoe K. Silva, 2004-09-07 In 1897, as a white oligarchy made plans to allow the United States to annex Hawai'i, native Hawaiians organized a massive petition drive to protest. Ninety-five percent of the native population signed the petition, causing the annexation treaty to fail in the U.S. Senate. This event was unknown to many contemporary Hawaiians until Noenoe K. Silva rediscovered the petition in the process of researching this book. With few exceptions, histories of Hawai'i have been based exclusively on English-language sources. They have not taken into account the thousands of pages of newspapers, books, and letters written in the mother tongue of native Hawaiians. By rigorously analyzing many of these documents, Silva fills a crucial gap in the historical record. In so doing, she refutes the long-held idea that native Hawaiians passively accepted the erosion of their culture and loss of their nation, showing that they actively resisted political, economic, linguistic, and cultural domination. Drawing on Hawaiian-language texts, primarily newspapers produced in the nineteenth century and early twentieth, Silva demonstrates that print media was central to social communication, political organizing, and the perpetuation of Hawaiian language and culture. A powerful critique of colonial historiography, Aloha Betrayed provides a much-needed history of native Hawaiian resistance to American imperialism. |
| history of american imperialism: A Question of Torture Alfred McCoy, 2007-04-01 A startling exposé of the CIA's development and spread of psychological torture, from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and beyond In this revelatory account of the CIA's secret, fifty-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy uncovers the deep, disturbing roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. Far from aberrations, as the White House has claimed, A Question of Torture shows that these abuses are the product of a long-standing covert program of interrogation. Developed at the cost of billions of dollars, the CIA's method combined sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain to create a revolutionary psychological approach—the first innovation in torture in centuries. The simple techniques—involving isolation, hooding, hours of standing, extremes of hot and cold, and manipulation of time—constitute an all-out assault on the victim's senses, destroying the basis of personal identity. McCoy follows the years of research—which, he reveals, compromised universities and the U.S. Army—and the method's dissemination, from Vietnam through Iran to Central America. He traces how after 9/11 torture became Washington's weapon of choice in both the CIA's global prisons and in torture-friendly countries to which detainees are dispatched. Finally McCoy argues that information extracted by coercion is worthless, making a case for the legal approach favored by the FBI. Scrupulously documented and grippingly told, A Question of Torture is a devastating indictment of inhumane practices that have spread throughout the intelligence system, damaging American's laws, military, and international standing. |
| history of american imperialism: Charles Austin Beard Richard Drake, 2018-12-15 Richard Drake presents a new interpretation of Charles Austin Beard's life and work. The foremost American historian and a leading public intellectual in the first half of the twentieth century, Beard participated actively in the debates about American politics and foreign policy surrounding the two world wars. In a radical change of critical focus, Charles Austin Beard places the European dimension of Beard's thought at the center, correcting previous biographers' oversights and presenting a far more nuanced appreciation for Beard's life. Drake analyzes the stages of Beard's development as a historian and critic: his role as an intellectual leader in the Progressive movement, the support that he gave to the cause of American intervention in World War I, and his subsequent revisionist repudiation of Wilsonian ideals and embrace of non-interventionism in the lead-up to World War II. Charles Austin Beard shows that, as Americans tally the ruinous costs—both financial and moral—of nation-building and informal empire, the life and work of this prophet of history merit a thorough reexamination. |
| history of american imperialism: Christian Imperialism Emily Conroy-Krutz, 2015-11-18 In 1812, eight American missionaries, under the direction of the recently formed American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, sailed from the United States to South Asia. The plans that motivated their voyage were ano less grand than taking part in the Protestant conversion of the entire world. Over the next several decades, these men and women were joined by hundreds more American missionaries at stations all over the globe. Emily Conroy-Krutz shows the surprising extent of the early missionary impulse and demonstrates that American evangelical Protestants of the early nineteenth century were motivated by Christian imperialism—an understanding of international relations that asserted the duty of supposedly Christian nations, such as the United States and Britain, to use their colonial and commercial power to spread Christianity. In describing how American missionaries interacted with a range of foreign locations (including India, Liberia, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, North America, and Singapore) and imperial contexts, Christian Imperialism provides a new perspective on how Americans thought of their country’s role in the world. While in the early republican period many were engaged in territorial expansion in the west, missionary supporters looked east and across the seas toward Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Conroy-Krutz’s history of the mission movement reveals that strong Anglo-American and global connections persisted through the early republic. Considering Britain and its empire to be models for their work, the missionaries of the American Board attempted to convert the globe into the image of Anglo-American civilization. |
| history of american imperialism: Empire and Dissent Fred Rosen, 2008-09-29 Since the early nineteenth century, the United States has repeatedly intervened in the affairs of Latin American nations to pursue its own interests and to “protect” those countries from other imperial powers or from internal “threats.” The resentment and opposition generated by the encroachment of U.S. power has been evident in the recurrent attempts of Latin American nations to pull away from U.S. dominance and in the frequent appearance of popular discontent and unrest directed against imperialist U.S. policies. In Empire and Dissent, senior Latin Americanists explore the interplay between various dimensions of imperial power and the resulting dissent and resistance. Several essays provide historical perspective on contemporary U.S.–hemispheric relations. These include an analysis of the nature and dynamics of imperial domination, an assessment of financial relations between the United States and Latin America since the end of World War II, an account of Native American resistance to colonialism, and a consideration of the British government’s decision to abolish slavery in its colonies. Other essays focus on present-day conflicts in the Americas, highlighting various modes of domination and dissent, resistance and accommodation. Examining southern Mexico’s Zapatista movement, one contributor discusses dissent in the era of globalization. Other contributors investigate the surprisingly conventional economic policies of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Argentina’s recovery from its massive 2001 debt default; the role of coca markets in the election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales; and the possibilities for extensive social change in Venezuela. A readers’ guide offers a timeline of key events from 1823 through 2007, along with a list of important individuals, institutions, and places. Contributors: Daniel A. Cieza, Gregory Evans Dowd, Steve Ellner, Neil Harvey, Alan Knight, Carlos Marichal, John Richard Oldfield, Silvia Rivera, Fred Rosen, Jeffrey W. Rubin |
| history of american imperialism: U.S. History P. Scott Corbett, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd Pfannestiel, Sylvie Waskiewicz, Paul Vickery, 2024-09-10 U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender. |
| history of american imperialism: Imperialism John Atkinson Hobson, 1902 |
| history of american imperialism: A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn, 2003-02-04 Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the, workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles -- the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality -- were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. Revised, updated, and featuring a new after, word by the author, this special twentieth anniversary edition continues Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history. |
| history of american imperialism: Tender Violence Laura Wexler, 2000 Examines the work of such female photojournalists as Alice Austen, Jessie Tarbox Beals, and Frances Benjamin Johnston, arguing that they produced images that helped to reinforce the imperialistic ideals that were forming at the beginning of the 20th century. |
| history of american imperialism: Race, Nation, and Empire in American History James T. Campbell, 2009-07-27 While public debates over America's current foreign policy often treat American empire as a new phenomenon, this lively collection of essays offers a pointed reminder that visions of national and imperial greatness were a cornerstone of the new country when it was founded. In fact, notions of empire have long framed debates over western expansio... |
| history of american imperialism: Anglo-American Imperialism and the Pacific Michelle Keown, Andrew Taylor, Mandy Treagus, 2018-05-23 This interdisciplinary collection explores the confluence of American and British (neo)imperalism in the Pacific, as represented in various forms of Pacific discourse including literature, ethnography, film, painting, autobiography, journalism, and environmental discourse. It investigates the alliances and rivalries between these two colonial powers during the crucial transition period of the early-to-mid twentieth century, also exploring indigenous Pacific responses to Anglo-American imperialism during and beyond the decolonization period of the late twentieth century. While the relationship between Britain and the US has been analyzed through prominent forms of economic and cultural exchange between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, there is to date no sustained study of the relationship between British and US colonial expansion into the Pacific, which became central to ideas of developing ‘European’ modernity in the late eighteenth century and has played a pivotal in the history of Anglo-American colonialism, from the establishment of plantation economies and settler colonies in the nineteenth century to various forms of military imperialism during and beyond the twentieth century. The wide range of discursive and expressive modes explored in this collection makes for a rich and multifaceted analysis of representations of, and responses to, Anglo-American imperialism, and is in keeping with the current interdisciplinary turn in postcolonial studies. |
| history of american imperialism: Dominion and Civility Michael Leroy Oberg, 1999 Michael Leroy Oberg considers the history of Anglo-Indian relations in transatlantic context while viewing the frontier as a zone where neither party had the upper hand. He tells how the English pursued three sets of policies in America -- securing profit for their sponsors, making lands safe from both European and native enemies, and civilizing the Indians -- and explains why the British settlers found it impossible to achieve all of these goals. |
| history of american imperialism: Open Veins of Latin America Eduardo Galeano, 1997 [In this book, the author's] analysis of the effects and causes of capitalist underdevelopment in Latin America present [an] account of ... Latin American history. [The author] shows how foreign companies reaped huge profits through their operations in Latin America. He explains the politics of the Latin American bourgeoisies and their subservience to foreign powers, and how they interacted to create increasingly unequal capitalist societies in Latin America.-Back cover. |
1898: The Start of American Imperialism, or its End?
1898: The Start of American Imperialism, or its End? Miller 1 Introduction For nearly a century, the year 1898 as been regarded as the unmistakable line of demarcation for American imperialism. …
American Imperialism: - history.rutgers.edu
American History 66 (1980): 810. Williams, William Appleman. The Roots of the Modern American Empire; a Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society. …
Into New Territory: American Historians and the Concept of US …
Amid this constellation of texts, James G. Morgan’s Into New Territory: American Historians and the Concept of US Imperialism offers a tightly focused historiographical examination of mid …
Imperialism and America - mrlocke.com
by the 1880s, many American leaders had become convinced that the United States should join the imperialist powers of Europe and establish colonies over-seas. Imperialism—the policy in …
Rise and Fall of US Imperialism - JSTOR
Rise of US Imperialism America has a long history of the use of force, oppression, and outright terror. From the Indian massacres by the early colonists to the gruesome slaughtering of over …
The Blessings of Civilization: The Roots of American Imperialism
What motivated America’s imperialism at this time? Was it driven by economic considerations, or was it the working out of a perceived destiny, an authentication of national stature? How did …
Imperialism, American Style, 1898–1916 - americainclass.org
American History, Cambridge, Mass., 1984, pp. 1—7; May, Social Engineering, p, 123; Robert E, Quirk, An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Vera Cruz, Lexington, KY, …
CrashCourse: US History American Imperialism - sfponline.org
CrashCourse: US History American Imperialism 1. Who were the first victims of American Imperialism? 2. According to the video, what was the leading cause of imperialism? 3. How did …
“The Spirit of Empire”: America Debates Imperialism
LESSON 1: AMERICA DEBATES IMPERIALISM. OVERVIEW. In the first lesson, students will identify, examine, and analyze the language and imagery in primary sources related to the …
AMERICAN IMPERIALISM: 1890-1913 - Orange County Public …
AMERICAN IMPERIALISM: 1890-1913 Overview: Unlike previous “Manifest Destiny” where expansion was on the North American continent and congruous with existing territory, the new …
American Nationalism, American Imperialism: An Interpretation of …
American nationalism was founded on the principle of political and economic union and what it promised: safety from attack and the prospect of boundless expansion.
American Imperialism since 1898 - UNC Greensboro
This course surveys the history of the American empire since 1890, beginning with some background discussion of the expansion of America westward through conquest of Native …
American Imperialism - JSTOR
Here follow some of his efforts to tell the reader what he is talking about: "Imperial-ism means domination of non-European native races by totally dissimilar European nations" - …
Chapter 10: U.S. Expansion and Imperialism—Note Packet
Out of the three factors that fueled American imperialism, which factor do you think played the greatest role in the U.S. acquisition of Hawaii? What about Alaska?
PRESIDENT McKINLEY AND AMERICAN IMPERIALISM: A
The American public quickly rallied behind McKinley. The subsequent public pressure on Congress ensured ratification of all subsequent treaties and policies ensuring American …
THE EMERGENCE OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM AND CHINA …
American Imperialism was the revised and a more complex form of colonial-ism, called as "new imperialism" by Hobson. He defined the term in his classic study at the turn of the last century. …
The Effects of Imperialism on the US: 1899-1902 - Portland State …
Imperialism by its very nature is a subject that demands debate. There are many viewpoints to why the United States, a nation born out of an anti-imperial revolution, decided to become an …
Review Essay History and Imperialism
In its stricter Marxist-Leninist applications, the word "imperialism" dates from the end of the nineteenth century and minimally connotes the use of state power to secure (or, at least, to …
An Interpretation of American Imperialism - JSTOR
American imperialism in the recent past. However, they are also the essential elements of what has long been referred to as Athenian and Spartan imperialism of the fifth century B.C. I intend …
Imperialism: A Critical Evaluation - University of Michigan
review of American history points to a pattern of imperialist behavior that goes back long before the postwar period to the very beginning of the Federal
1898: The Start of American Imperialism, or its End?
1898: The Start of American Imperialism, or its End? Miller 1 Introduction For nearly a century, the year 1898 as been regarded as the unmistakable line of demarcation for American imperialism. In that year two significant events transpired, each with very different origins and outcomes, yet remarkably similar in political underpinnings and
American Imperialism: - history.rutgers.edu
American History 66 (1980): 810. Williams, William Appleman. The Roots of the Modern American Empire; a Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society. New York: Random House, 1969. ———. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Rev. and enl. ed. [New York: Dell Pub.Co., 1962. Young, Marilyn Blatt.
Into New Territory: American Historians and the Concept of US Imperialism
Amid this constellation of texts, James G. Morgan’s Into New Territory: American Historians and the Concept of US Imperialism offers a tightly focused historiographical examination of mid-century revisionism.
Imperialism and America - mrlocke.com
by the 1880s, many American leaders had become convinced that the United States should join the imperialist powers of Europe and establish colonies over-seas. Imperialism—the policy in which stronger nations extend their economic, political, or military control over weaker territories—was already a trend around the world.
Rise and Fall of US Imperialism - JSTOR
Rise of US Imperialism America has a long history of the use of force, oppression, and outright terror. From the Indian massacres by the early colonists to the gruesome slaughtering of over 2,50,000 Iraqis during the 1991 Gulf war and to the insidious policy of embargo on Cuba, American power has functioned as an instrument of imperial rule and ...
The Blessings of Civilization: The Roots of American Imperialism
What motivated America’s imperialism at this time? Was it driven by economic considerations, or was it the working out of a perceived destiny, an authentication of national stature? How did American justify its imperial
Imperialism, American Style, 1898–1916 - americainclass.org
American History, Cambridge, Mass., 1984, pp. 1—7; May, Social Engineering, p, 123; Robert E, Quirk, An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Vera Cruz, Lexington, KY, 1962, pp. 123-54, 170-1; A. E. Campbell, "The Paradox of Imperialism: The American Case," in Mommsen and Osterhammel (cds), Imperialism and After, p. 37.
CrashCourse: US History American Imperialism - sfponline.org
CrashCourse: US History American Imperialism 1. Who were the first victims of American Imperialism? 2. According to the video, what was the leading cause of imperialism? 3. How did the economic events of the 1890’s impact imperialism? 4. What was Alfred T. Mahan’s philosophy? 5. How did acquiring Alaska from Russia benefit the U.S?
“The Spirit of Empire”: America Debates Imperialism
LESSON 1: AMERICA DEBATES IMPERIALISM. OVERVIEW. In the first lesson, students will identify, examine, and analyze the language and imagery in primary sources related to the debate on US...
AMERICAN IMPERIALISM: 1890-1913 - Orange County Public …
AMERICAN IMPERIALISM: 1890-1913 Overview: Unlike previous “Manifest Destiny” where expansion was on the North American continent and congruous with existing territory, the new “Manifest Destiny” would extend to islands that were heavily populated, far from the U.S., and not seen as suitable by the U.S. to
American Nationalism, American Imperialism: An Interpretation of …
American nationalism was founded on the principle of political and economic union and what it promised: safety from attack and the prospect of boundless expansion.
American Imperialism since 1898 - UNC Greensboro
This course surveys the history of the American empire since 1890, beginning with some background discussion of the expansion of America westward through conquest of Native American lands. We will begin by examining the various interpretations of what empire looked like in the past and how it evidences itself in today’s world.
American Imperialism - JSTOR
Here follow some of his efforts to tell the reader what he is talking about: "Imperial-ism means domination of non-European native races by totally dissimilar European nations" --"Imperialism, in the form that has been so conspicuous since 1875, is a peculiarly Euro-pean product. * * * America has not yet been.
Chapter 10: U.S. Expansion and Imperialism—Note Packet
Out of the three factors that fueled American imperialism, which factor do you think played the greatest role in the U.S. acquisition of Hawaii? What about Alaska?
PRESIDENT McKINLEY AND AMERICAN IMPERIALISM: A
The American public quickly rallied behind McKinley. The subsequent public pressure on Congress ensured ratification of all subsequent treaties and policies ensuring American annexation of the Philippines and several lesser islands throughout the Pacific. This report describes McKinley?s expansionist
THE EMERGENCE OF AMERICAN IMPERIALISM AND CHINA POLICY…
American Imperialism was the revised and a more complex form of colonial-ism, called as "new imperialism" by Hobson. He defined the term in his classic study at the turn of the last century. He observed: "The new imperialism differs from the older, first, in substituting for the ambition of a single growing empire
The Effects of Imperialism on the US: 1899-1902 - Portland State …
Imperialism by its very nature is a subject that demands debate. There are many viewpoints to why the United States, a nation born out of an anti-imperial revolution, decided to become an imperial power. Emily Rosenburg, Spreading the American Dream, argued that the American’s intentions were essentially philanthropic. 1
Review Essay History and Imperialism
In its stricter Marxist-Leninist applications, the word "imperialism" dates from the end of the nineteenth century and minimally connotes the use of state power to secure (or, at least, to attempt to secure) economic monopolies for national companies.
An Interpretation of American Imperialism - JSTOR
American imperialism in the recent past. However, they are also the essential elements of what has long been referred to as Athenian and Spartan imperialism of the fifth century B.C. I intend the word "boundaries" in the geographic sense, since imperialism in an inter-national context has always implied spatial expansion. However,
