This book makes a postcolonial reading of the American invasion and colonization of the Philippines in 1898. It considers how nineteenth-century American popular culture, specifically political cartoons and caricatures, influenced American foreign policy. These sources, drawn from several U.S. libraries and archives, show how race and gender ideologies significantly influenced the move of the U.S. to annex the Philippines. The book not only includes a significant collection of political cartoons and caricatures about Filipinos, it also offers an alternative interpretation of the reasons why the U.S. ventured into colonial expansion in Asia.
An attempt to deal, by inductive methods, with the consolidation and dissolution of those administrative masses which we call empires. Includes bibliographical references and index. In 1866, being asked by his publisher to write a short history of Massachusetts, Brooks Adams (1848-1927) broke upon the literary world with The Emancipation of Massachusetts in which he demolished and rewrote the history of the colony and province of Massachusetts Bay, originally chronicled by the priestly oligarchy against which the book was launched, and in later times principally by eminent members of the Congregational clergy. It made a great stir, especially in religious circles, and brought severe criticism and even denunciation upon the author, but he lived to see it pass to a second edition as accepted history. He then turned to a study of trade-routes and their influence upon the history of peoples and nations and in 1896 published The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay on History, a work of a high order as history which laid down the principle that human societies differed among themselves in proportion as they were endowed by nature with energy, a principle later developed by Henry Adams. He regarded this as his most significant work. Beginning in 1907 he successfully filled the chair of constitutional law in Boston University. ôPursuing a line of argument already worked out in his Law of Civilization and Decay, Mr. Adams offers an explanation, a theory it may be called, of the rise and decline of successive "empires" from the dawn of history to the present. The objective point of the argument is to account for the present, or imminent, supremacy of America as an imperial power.ö Thorstein Veblen
In this volume, Hamilton deals with some of the antecedents and the outcome of the Spanish-American war, specifically, the acquisition of an American empire. It critiques the "progressive" view of those events, questioning the notion that businessmen (and compliant politicians) aggressively sought new markets, particularly those of Asia. Hamilton shows that United States' exports continued to go, predominantly, to the major European nations. The progressive tradition has focused on empire, specifically on the Philippines depicted as a stepping stone to the China market. Hamilton shows that the Asian market remained minuscule in the following decades, and that other historical works have neglected the most important change in the nation's trade pattern, the growth of the Canada market, which two decades after the 1898 war, became the United States' largest foreign market.The book begins with a review and criticism of the basic assumptions of the progressive framework. These are, first, that the nation is ruled by big business (political leaders being compliant co-workers). Second, that those businessmen are zealous profit seekers. And third, that they are well-informed rational decision-makers. A further underlying assumption is that the economy was not functioning well in the 1890s and that a need for new markets was recognized as an urgent necessity, so that big business, accordingly, demanded world power and empire. Each of these assumptions, pivotal elements in the dominant progressive tradition in historical writing, is challenged, with an alternative viewpoint presented.Hamilton presents a different, more complex view of the events following the Spanish-American War. The class-dominance theory is not supported. The alternative argued here, elitism, proves appropriate and more useful. This review and assessment of arguments about American expansion in the 1890s adds much to the literature of the period.
The study delves into the rise of Arabic as an imperial language in the 7th and 8th centuries. It combines insights from papyrological, epigraphic and numismatic evidence to correlate early Islamic scribal practices with broader strategies of imperi
After the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years’ War in 1763, British America stretched from Hudson Bay to the Florida Keys, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River, and across new islands in the West Indies. To better rule these vast dominions, Britain set out to map its new territories with unprecedented rigor and precision. Max Edelson’s The New Map of Empire pictures the contested geography of the British Atlantic world and offers new explanations of the causes and consequences of Britain’s imperial ambitions in the generation before the American Revolution. Under orders from King George III to reform the colonies, the Board of Trade dispatched surveyors to map far-flung frontiers, chart coastlines in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sound Florida’s rivers, parcel tropical islands into plantation tracts, and mark boundaries with indigenous nations across the continental interior. Scaled to military standards of resolution, the maps they produced sought to capture the essential attributes of colonial spaces—their natural capacities for agriculture, navigation, and commerce—and give British officials the knowledge they needed to take command over colonization from across the Atlantic. Britain’s vision of imperial control threatened to displace colonists as meaningful agents of empire and diminished what they viewed as their greatest historical accomplishment: settling the New World. As London’s mapmakers published these images of order in breathtaking American atlases, Continental and British forces were already engaged in a violent contest over who would control the real spaces they represented. Accompanying Edelson’s innovative spatial history of British America are online visualizations of more than 250 original maps, plans, and charts.
"In Volume 1, Vizetelly describes travelling to Berlin and his mixed first impressions. He sketches a brief history of the city and its development from the thirteenth century onwards, and in a series of essay-style chapters he discusses aspects of Berlin culture and society - including dinner-party etiquette - as well as political and military personalities."--Page 4 of cover.
An updated look at the United States' precarious position given the recent financial turmoil In The New Empire of Debt, financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin return to reveal how the financial crisis that has plagued the United States will soon bring an end to this once great empire. Throughout the book, the authors offer an updated look at the United States' precarious position given the recent financial turmoil, and discuss how government control of the economy and financial system-combined with unfettered deficit spending and gluttonous consumption-has ravaged the business environment, devastated consumer confidence, and pushed the global economy to the brink. Along the way, Bonner and Wiggin cast a wide angle lens that looks back in history and ahead to the coming century: showing how dramatic changes in the economic power of the United States will inevitably impact every American. Reveals the financial realities the United States currently faces and what the ultimate outcome may be Weaves together the worlds of politics, economics, and personal finance in a way that underscores the severity of the situation Addresses the events leading up to the implosion of the U.S. financial system Looks ahead to help you avoid the pitfalls presented by a weaker United States Other titles by Bonner: Empire of Debt, Financial Reckoning Day, and Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets Other titles by Wiggin: I.O.U.S.A., Demise of the Dollar, and Financial Reckoning Day The United States is heading down a difficult path. The New Empire of Debt clearly shows how this has happened and discusses what you can do to overcome the financial challenges that will arise as the situation deteriorates.
