American Empire
The period from 1898 to 2000 is now commonly referred to by a
number of American historians as the American Century. Others more critically narrow it to a shorter time frame from around 1945-2001. This century encompasses the maturation of
the United States as an economic power and global leader but it also comes at
the price of a series of major wars and smaller interventions: the Spanish American War of 1898; the First
World War; the Second World War; Korea; Vietnam; Iraq; and a host of direct
military interventions and sponsored coups in the Caribbean, Central America,
Africa and the Middle East. What one
means by the term American Century is accordingly a subject of considerable
debate. For Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, (1990)
and Gabriel Kolko, Century of War:
Politics, Conflicts, and Society Since 1914 (1995),and other historians on
the left, this notion refers to an aggressive interventionist attempt at
establishing and maintaining an American Empire through direct occupation and
intervention. For conservative writers like Bradley Thayer American Empire: A Debate, (2006), who write in the
aftermath of the Gulf Wars of 1990 and 2003, the development of empire is a rational
American path of exceptionalism, and is upheld as part of a neoconservative
program of exporting democracy to uncooperative states. A number of textbooks and more specialized
studies have arisen as in William Chafe, The
Rise and Fall of the American Century (2008) to Walter LaFeber et al., The American Century: A History of the United States since the
1890s. It is customary to begin the study of American expansionism and
conquest of Cuba and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War of
1898 One should also consider by
extension the annexation of Hawaii in 1893 and military intervention in
Nicaragua to protect American interests as part of this overseas
expansion. Whether one agrees to the
attribution of ‘American Century’ may then depend on one’s acceptance or
criticism of the ethics of intervention and the exceptionalism or an American
mission or destiny. If one is interested
in world history and comparative perspectives, one is more inclined to separate
from the exceptionalist model and seek a history that includes non-Western
perspectives.
Americans and the World
in 1898: Race and Empire at Home and
Abroad
It is customary to begin the study
of American expansionism and conquest of Cuba and the Philippines during the
Spanish-American War of 1898. One should
also consider by extension the annexation of Hawaii in 1893 and military
intervention in Nicaragua to protect American interests as part of this
overseas expansion. Whether one agrees
to the attribution ‘American Century’ may then depend on one’s acceptance or
criticism of the ethics of intervention and the exceptionalism of a nationailst
American mission or claimed destiny. If
one is interested in world history and comparative perspectives, one is more in
inclined to separate from the exceptionalist model and seek a history that
includes non-Western perspectives. How
do we resolve the interventionism of American empire with the inherent moral dilemma
of racial judgment and suppression that underscored the War for the
Philippines? An answer may be to
research and read primary documents that reflect the racial nature of the
intervention. The documents available
online and in the reader I make available to the class are a beginning. Other texts on the War for the Philippines
that will be of considerable interest to students on the West Coast are, The
Official Records of the Oregon Volunteers in the Spanish War and Philippine
Insurrection (1902) available from the Internet Archive. Students who review this text and its
documentation quickly will become aware of the connection of Oregon to an
expanding Ameican involvement in the world.
A close reading of these texts will however show the racial assumptions
used to rationalize conquering islands.
What is amiss in these documents is any understanding of the depth of
advanced ideas and political development toward democracy that had been put forth by
contemporary Philippine nationalists like the novelist and physician, José
Rizal, executed in 1898 just prior to the Ameican invasion. A number of recent works have shed light on
this period incuding, Angel Shaw and Luis Francia, Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath
of an Imperial Dream 1899-1999 (2002). On the other hand we find
conservative historians attempting to rationalize the American intervention, as
in David Silbey’s A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902 (2007)
and Bruce Linn, The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (2002). Those with an interest in domestic resistance
may still profit from Daniel Shirmer’s Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War (1974).
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