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Spanish-American War (Latino Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2. The Spanish-American War marked a watershed in American history, when the United States first announced its intention to assert great-power status in world politics with meaningful, concrete policies. The war began as an intervention into the Spanish-Cuban conflict, a nationalist revolt by the Cubans that had been intermittently engaged for decades but had resumed with unusual ferocity in 1895. The fact that the United States emerged from the conflict with a set of colonies extending from Puerto Rico to the Philippines has fueled a wide range of interpretations about whether the American decision to intervene in Cuba was motivated by the desire to engage in empire building, or whether the decisions to start the war and acquire an empire were made independently of each other. The evidence is ambiguous; those relying on an economic approach to explaining US behavior gravitate to the former view, while those whose interpretive lens trains on cultural and ideological variables tend to adopt the position that the war was engaged in for the humanitarian purposes stated by American leaders, while imperialism represented a distinct policy choice. President William McKinley’s intentions are shrouded, and they seem to hold the key to understanding whether the United States fought Spain in 1898 for primarily selfish or compassionate reasons. Certainly for the mass public in 1898, and most likely for many policymakers as well, American intervention in the Spanish-Cuban War was initiated primarily for humanitarian purposes. Consequently, many Americans felt surprise and betrayal when their country’s “noble” undertaking resulted in an unprecedented imperialist experiment. A massive debate about America’s identity and role in the world seized the nation. Few seemed to notice or care, though, that neither the Cubans, for whom the United States ostensibly started fighting, nor the Filipinos, who occupied the most significant colony after the war, were allowed to participate in this debate. Many questions of intent still remain unresolved. A complicated affair of tremendous significance, the Spanish-American War has invited a huge body of scholarship, much of which invites us to think in fresh ways about American foreign policy and national identity.
  3.  
  4. General Overviews
  5. Several approaches can provide the reader with a general understanding of the Spanish-American War and its significance. Historical overviews of the Era impart domestic context and flavor, while general overviews of US Foreign Policy can generate the benefit of a longer-term perspective. Of most immediate salience, of course, are overviews of the Conflict itself, especially when they integrate broad analytic perspectives with rich historical detail.
  6.  
  7. The Era
  8. The 1890s was the decade when the United States seemed finally to overcome the legacy of the Civil War by turning its attention outward, to a world that it would address more assertively, rather than inward, at its sectional divisions. Oldfield 1999 speaks directly to this issue; Van Alstyne 1970 examines it from a slightly different angle. Brands 1995 and Traxel 1998 describe how the 1890s featured economic turbulence, increased urbanization and industrialization, reinvigorated racism (marked by the creation of Jim Crow laws), and impatience with America’s status as a second-tier power. Biographies of President McKinley (see the Role of President McKinley) can be very thorough in describing the contours of the era, as are many overviews of the conflict; Glad 1964 also provides thorough historical context by examining prevailing political dynamics.
  9.  
  10. Brands, H. W. The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890s. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995.
  11.  
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  13.  
  14. Brands is a prolific author of brisk, readable histories. This book provides a nice window into the dynamism of the decade and helps the reader to understand the larger forces at work in American society around the time of the war, including labor strife, crumbling race relations, and international ferment.
  15.  
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  17.  
  18. Glad, Paul W. McKinley, Bryan, and the People. New York: Lippincott, 1964.
  19.  
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  21.  
  22. William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan squared off in 1896 and 1900. Because presidential contests inevitably raise all issues of relevance to voters, Glad’s able analysis of these campaigns provides an excellent survey of matters of broad importance to Americans in the 1890s.
  23.  
  24. Find this resource:
  25.  
  26. Oldfield, John. “Remembering the Maine: The United States, 1898, and Sectional Reconciliation.” In The Crisis of 1898: Colonial Redistribution and Nationalist Mobilization. Edited by Angel Smith and Emma Dávila-Cox, 45–64. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.
  27.  
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  29.  
  30. An article that takes as its focus a theme diffuse in the literature—the way that events in the 1890s catalyzed sectional healing to produce a more geographically coherent nation.
  31.  
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  33.  
  34. Traxel, David. 1898: The Birth of the American Century. New York: Knopf, 1998.
  35.  
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  37.  
  38. A popular history that breaks no new interpretive ground but brings both the historical significance and domestic turbulence surrounding the war into focus. Interesting, especially for a general reader.
  39.  
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  41.  
  42. Van Alstyne, Richard W. Genesis of American Nationalism. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell, 1970.
  43.  
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  45.  
  46. A distinguished historian of American diplomacy, who has written directly on the current topic, Van Alstyne connects US foreign policy with the development of a unified national identity. The 1890s figure prominently in this narrative.
  47.  
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  49.  
  50. The Conflict
  51. It is often easiest to consider the Spanish-American War’s run-up and aftermath as part of a seamless whole in order to assess the motivations for the colonial policy that came at the war’s conclusion. Musicant 1998 and Trask 1981 offer lengthy treatises that are thorough and rich in detail. O’Toole 1984 provides a similarly lengthy overview, but unlike Trask, for example, O’Toole provides a brisker and less systematic account. May 1961 draws on multi-archival research to provide what remains the classic explanatory account of the conflict. Smith 1994 manages to be thorough yet succinct. Cosmas 1971 focuses on the military side of the war. Freidel 2002 plays on Secretary of State John Hay’s euphemism for the war to provide a detailed exposition of the mismanagement and pervasive ugliness of the conflict.
  52.  
  53. Cosmas, Graham A. An Army for Empire: The United States Army and the Spanish-American War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971.
  54.  
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  56.  
  57. The best single-volume account that emphasizes the military angle. There is little here to inform the larger debates surrounding this period, however.
  58.  
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  60.  
  61. Freidel, Frank. The Splendid Little War. Short Hills, NJ: Burford, 2002.
  62.  
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  64.  
  65. An early debunking of the belief that the war was as clean and easy as it was short and decisive. More Americans died from disease than from combat. Originally published in 1958 (Boston: Little, Brown).
  66.  
  67. Find this resource:
  68.  
  69. May, Ernest R. Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of America as a Great Power. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961.
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  72.  
  73. May’s classic shows what jingoism looked like, while tracing the decision making of Spain’s, Cuba’s, and America’s leaders against the period’s broader political and social backdrops. Despite functioning as a detailed recounting of the events, this book is better read as a massive analytic essay illuminating the origins of American imperialism. Republished in 1973 (New York: Harper & Row).
  74.  
  75. Find this resource:
  76.  
  77. Musicant, Ivan. Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century. New York: Holt, 1998.
  78.  
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  80.  
  81. Among the many works that came out to mark the Spanish-American War’s centennial, this is the best single-volume work to capture the full range of the episode.
  82.  
  83. Find this resource:
  84.  
  85. O’Toole, G. J. A. The Spanish War: An American Epic—1898. New York: Norton, 1984.
  86.  
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  88.  
  89. O’Toole’s book exploits the storytelling potential of the war, by weaving his analysis into a novelistic recounting of the history. Colorful and informative but not as scholarly as other overviews (which many might find appealing).
  90.  
  91. Find this resource:
  92.  
  93. Smith, Joseph. The Spanish-American War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895–1902. New York: Longman, 1994.
  94.  
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  96.  
  97. Intended as a textbook, Smith’s overview demonstrates the possibility of covering the run-up to the war, the war itself, and its aftermath, in a single manuscript of manageable length and accessible prose.
  98.  
  99. Find this resource:
  100.  
  101. Trask, David F. The War with Spain in 1898. New York: Macmillan, 1981.
  102.  
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  104.  
  105. When factoring in both military details and broader analysis, this is probably the single-best overview of the war. Attentive to political context and social forces, Trask nonetheless provides an in-depth play-by-play account of the war.
  106.  
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  108.  
  109. US Foreign Policy
  110. With literally thousands of overviews of US foreign policy available, the following list is intended to serve as a representative sample to guide further research. The titles sampled here demonstrate how a broader historical perspective can produce valuable insights into a given episode; the selected volumes also speak directly and lucidly to the current topic. Hunt 2009 laid the foundation for rigorous cultural and ideological interpretations, while Williams 2009 did the same for economic interpretations. Neither author was the first to analyze US foreign policy from their respective interpretive positions, of course, but they have proven to be unusually influential, both in the field of US foreign policy history generally and in regard to research into the Spanish-American War. Cortada 1978 provides an overview of US-Spanish relations from the Spanish perspective, which gives the reader a refreshingly unfamiliar vantage of events. Ekirch 1966 was written by a scholar of the Progressive era who was especially qualified to provide an authoritative frame of reference on the episode. Smith 2008 provides one of the best overviews of US–Latin American relations, while Herring 2008 is a mammoth history of US foreign policy that manages to develop a coherent unifying logic rooted in American identity while devoting substantial attention to each era, including the late 19th century. Dallek 1983 focuses on the role of domestic politics in the production of foreign policies, while Immerman 2010 stresses how American national identity is, for a number of reasons, inherently prone to imperialism.
  111.  
  112. Cortada, James W. Two Nations over Time: Spain and the United States, 1776–1977. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1978.
  113.  
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  115.  
  116. By writing both from a long-term and Spanish perspective, Cortada is able to produce new insights. For example, he shows that Cuba had been a flashpoint for Spanish-American relations throughout the 19th century, and by removing Cuba from play, the Spanish-American War had the ironic effect of improving relations between the two states.
  117.  
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  119.  
  120. Dallek, Robert. The American Style of Foreign Policy: Cultural Politics and Foreign Affairs. New York: Knopf, 1983.
  121.  
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  123.  
  124. One of the more fully developed presentations of the “psychic crisis” thesis is offered in an early chapter of this book (see Prewar Diplomacy and Agitation). The book’s emphasis is the connection between domestic politics and foreign policy.
  125.  
  126. Find this resource:
  127.  
  128. Ekirch, Arthur A., Jr. Ideas, Ideals, and American Diplomacy: A History of Their Growth and Interaction. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966.
  129.  
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  131.  
  132. The author’s expertise in Progressive-era culture and politics gives his account unusual insight into the worldview of American policymakers during the 1890s.
  133.  
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  135.  
  136. Herring, George C. From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  137.  
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  139.  
  140. Mammoth and comprehensive, yet readable and with a sustained narrative arc, Herring’s book offers the argument that US foreign policy has both shaped and been shaped by America’s national identity. Believing ourselves to be exceptional, Herring shows, we have felt free to engage the world in often-aggressive ways. His attention to the Spanish-American War is extensive.
  141.  
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  143.  
  144. Hunt, Michael H. Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy. 2d ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
  145.  
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  147.  
  148. Hunt argues that Americans pursue foreign policy ideologically, with an innate sense of their nation’s inherent superiority. Americans’ implicit embrace of cultural (and for much of American history, racial) hierarchy has shaped their encounter with other peoples, Hunt argues, with special significance for nonwhite or “uncivilized” populations. Originally published in 1987.
  149.  
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  151.  
  152. Immerman, Richard H. Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010.
  153.  
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  155.  
  156. An innovative survey that uses a series of biographical sketches that span the history of American foreign policy to build the argument that empire building is woven into the fabric of American thought. Imperialism for Immerman is not an occasional policy choice but the natural expression of Americans’ self-understanding.
  157.  
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  159.  
  160. Smith, Peter H. Talons of the Eagle: Latin America, the United States, and the World. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  161.  
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  163.  
  164. One of the best overviews of US–Latin American relations, this study shows the impact of the Spanish-American War on long-term hemispheric relations while attending to the broader geopolitical context of American decisions.
  165.  
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  167.  
  168. Williams, William A. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. New York: Norton, 2009.
  169.  
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  171.  
  172. Fiftieth-anniversary edition; originally published in 1959 (Cleveland, OH: World Publishing). This book essentially created the New Left approach to studying foreign policy, which emphasizes how business interests and an ideology of imperialism essentially control foreign-policy decision making and how economic concerns invariably trump (or shape) moral and cultural arguments. In this account, and in most of this genre, the Spanish-American War plays an outsized role in the development of America’s engagement with the world.
  173.  
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  175.  
  176. Reference Works
  177. Reference works allow the reader to sample specific aspects of the history with ease, with online resources proving especially useful in this regard. These resources are useful either as companions to scholars who want to look up an unfamiliar term or as starting points for researchers seeking to get a feel for the subject. Dyal 1996 offers a good introductory reference for learning more about specific people and subjects, especially for undergraduate research, while the larger scope of Tucker 2009 can support more-in-depth analyses. Online resources enable an immersive experience. The Library of Congress offers a site edited by Kenneth Drexler, Guide to the Spanish-American War, that not only provides links to an extensive variety of traditional sources but is also full of multimedia sources; the same is true of the Spanish American War Centennial Website. One of the best available collections of primary sources—whether in print or online—has been gathered by Mount Holyoke professor Vincent Ferraro (Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy, 1898–1914). Comparable print data sets typically require access to a major research facility; Dr. Ferraro’s is available to anyone with an Internet connection.
  178.  
  179. Drexler, Kenneth, ed. Guide to the Spanish-American War.
  180.  
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  182.  
  183. One of the Library of Congress’s “Virtual Programs for Researchers,” this website is full of links to movies, historical records, related websites, audio recordings, and many other sources. An excellent place to immerse oneself both in scholarly and popular artifacts. Extremely thorough.
  184.  
  185. Find this resource:
  186.  
  187. Dyal, Donald H. Historical Dictionary of the Spanish American War. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996.
  188.  
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  190.  
  191. Includes an alphabetical list of individuals, concepts, and other referents (some quite obscure), as well as a bibliographical essay, chronology, and orienting essay. Useful for libraries.
  192.  
  193. Find this resource:
  194.  
  195. Ferraro, Vincent, ed. Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy, 1898–1914.
  196.  
  197. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  198.  
  199. A fantastic collection of primary sources (and some secondary sources) are linked to this site. Dr. Ferraro’s web page, to which this site is connected, includes a trove of other useful links covering the full range of American foreign policy and international relations. A wonderful resource.
  200.  
  201. Find this resource:
  202.  
  203. Spanish American War Centennial Website.
  204.  
  205. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  206.  
  207. This website includes many links dedicated to the military aspects of the conflict, but it also features sound recordings, images, and a thorough bibliography.
  208.  
  209. Find this resource:
  210.  
  211. Tucker, Spencer C., ed. The Encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History. 3 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
  212.  
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  214.  
  215. Comprehensive and in depth, this set includes maps, essays, and a volume dedicated to primary sources. Recommended for libraries.
  216.  
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  218.  
  219. Select Contemporaneous Sources
  220. Foreign policy dominated public discourse for a short time surrounding the Spanish-American War, particularly during its colonial aftermath. Prominent public figures gave speeches defending or opposing America’s imperial policy, and several wrote monographs that remain thought provoking. Alfred Mahan’s ideas are credited with spurring American naval expansion in the 1890s; he believed that the Spanish-American War fit into his general understanding of the importance of sea power and the inevitable rise of America to greatness (Mahan 1970). Henry Cabot Lodge was an exemplar of the perspective that the United States was due to become the leading power on the world stage, and he was empowered by his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to act on this belief (Lodge 1899). Roosevelt 2011 demonstrates the ability of leading voices to render invisible the contributions of nonwhites, including the Latino population in whose service the United States ostensibly went to war. (On the contributions of Mahan, Lodge, and Roosevelt, see Zimmermann 2002 under Postwar Colonialism and the Anti-imperialist Debate.) William James almost literally embodied the term “public intellectual” in criticizing US imperialism (James 1977), while Mark Twain brought his wit and sharp observations to bear on the same task (Twain 1992). Sumner 1899 provides what is still the best libertarian critique of activist foreign policy. Muller 1966 offers a critique of the commonly held view that Josiah Strong was an advocate of empire (Strong 1900). Muller’s argument notwithstanding, Strong’s missionary zeal represented a huge strain of imperialist sentiment even if he did not embrace it in a classic sense of the term himself.
  221.  
  222. James, William. The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition. Edited by John J. McDermott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
  223.  
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  225.  
  226. James offered withering criticisms of the imperialist policy that followed the Spanish-American War. Like many others, he argued that such policies violated core American values. This volume includes his essay “On the Moral Equivalent of War,” as well as a list and synopsis of the many letters and op-eds he wrote against imperialism.
  227.  
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  229.  
  230. Lodge, Henry Cabot. The War with Spain. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899.
  231.  
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  233.  
  234. Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lodge was an ardent expansionist who believed the United States had to take its proper position at the helm of world politics. In his view, the Spanish-American War was an expression of America’s irresistible and growing surge. Republished as recently as 2010 (Charleston, SC: Nabu).
  235.  
  236. Find this resource:
  237.  
  238. Mahan, Alfred T. Lessons of the War with Spain, and Other Articles. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries, 1970.
  239.  
  240. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  241.  
  242. Mahan’s earlier study of the role of sea power in history is often credited with contributing to an outward-looking posture among influential Americans in the 1890s; this book affirms that he agreed the time had arrived for the United States to assume its rightful place as a leading state in world politics. Originally published in 1899 (Boston: Little, Brown).
  243.  
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  245.  
  246. Muller, Dorothea R. “Josiah Strong and American Nationalism: A Reevaluation.” Journal of American History 53.3 (December 1966): 487–503.
  247.  
  248. DOI: 10.2307/1887567Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  249.  
  250. Muller punctures the idea that writers such as Strong decisively shaped US foreign policy during the Spanish-American War. Her argument shows the need to remember that thinkers such as Strong are important less in their own right as shapers of events than as representatives of broader currents of thought.
  251.  
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  253.  
  254. Roosevelt, Theodore. Rough Riders. Philadelphia: Empire, 2011.
  255.  
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  257.  
  258. Before becoming vice president for McKinley’s second term and then president upon McKinley’s assassination, Roosevelt was secretary of the navy. At the outbreak of hostilities, he resigned that position to form a volunteer cavalry unit called the Rough Riders. This bestselling book records their experiences. Originally published in 1899 (New York: Scribner).
  259.  
  260. Find this resource:
  261.  
  262. Strong, Josiah. Expansionism under New World-Conditions. New York: Baker & Taylor, 1900.
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  265.  
  266. Strong’s various monographs practically caricature the missionary sentiment, so purely do they reflect it. He is a representative figure of the era’s religious nationalist-imperialist zeitgeist.
  267.  
  268. Find this resource:
  269.  
  270. Sumner, William Graham. The Conquest of the United States by Spain, and Other Essays. Boston: Estes, 1899.
  271.  
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  273.  
  274. Sumner was a leading public intellectual whose ideas still resonate strongly today among libertarians. His many essays opposing imperialism reflect a principled anti-statism that continues to inform current arguments against overseas adventurism. This essay, his best, and others like it are widely available on the Internet.
  275.  
  276. Find this resource:
  277.  
  278. Twain, Mark. Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays. Vol. 2. Edited by Louis J. Budd. New York: Library Classics of America, 1992.
  279.  
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  281.  
  282. Twain’s essays opposing imperialism were often searing and, not unexpectedly, remain as fun to read today as they were when originally written.
  283.  
  284. Find this resource:
  285.  
  286. Prewar Diplomacy and Agitation
  287. Most accounts of the war link its origins with its outcome in some fashion. Among the studies that confine their attention primarily to the run-up to the war, without focusing too much on its imperial consequences, the majority suggest that public opinion somehow caused the war. Hofstadter 1965 offers a “psychic crisis” thesis that holds that depressed economic conditions and generalized social unrest generated tinderbox conditions in which Americans were easily persuaded to externalize their aggression. Millis 1931 and Wilkerson 1932 offer similar analyses, putting great weight on the influence of the so-called yellow press. Often scurrilous, the stories that appeared in the publications of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer in particular were calculated to whip the public into a frenzy, according to this line of argument. Miller 2011 and Campbell 2003 show the limitations of this argument. Tebbel 1996 offers a narrative highlighting the drama and excitement of the journalists’ exploits, without challenging the yellow press thesis. In a different vein, Offner 1992 details a broad array of evidence to show that political conditions in Cuba and Spain, as well as in the United States, were such that capitulation to the demands of other actors was almost inconceivable (and thus, war was practically inevitable), while Tone 2006 examines the Spanish-Cuban War of 1895–1898 in great detail.
  288.  
  289. Campbell, W. Joseph. Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.
  290.  
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  292.  
  293. Campbell systematically dismantles the idea that the yellow press had the influence on events that is commonly attributed to it, in part by showing that, for reasons including circulation and competition, it could not possibly have exerted such influence even if it wanted to.
  294.  
  295. Find this resource:
  296.  
  297. Hofstadter, Richard. “Cuba, the Philippines, and Manifest Destiny.” In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, and Other Essays. By Richard Hofstadter, 145–187. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.
  298.  
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  300.  
  301. This is the essay that introduced the “psychic crisis” argument, which holds that a restless, anxious energy coursing through American society needed an outlet. The war provided the outlet, and the Depression of 1893 was the source of the general unrest.
  302.  
  303. Find this resource:
  304.  
  305. Miller, Bonnie M. From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.
  306.  
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  308.  
  309. Miller highlights the significance of the Maine sinking and cultural constructions of Cubans as needing rescue by America as significant components of the American public’s attitudes supporting intervention in Cuba. Although the mass public might have been genuinely sympathetic to the Cubans’ plight, however, McKinley and other leaders had different motives, according to Miller.
  310.  
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  312.  
  313. Millis, Walter. The Martial Spirit: A Study of Our War with Spain. New York: Viking, 1931.
  314.  
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  316.  
  317. Millis wrote one of the leading early interpretations of the war, which suggested that a kind of mass hysteria gripped the nation and compelled it to war. This book was important in shaping the long-held view of President McKinley as a weak leader.
  318.  
  319. Find this resource:
  320.  
  321. Offner, John L. An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain over Cuba, 1895–1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
  322.  
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  324.  
  325. Offner’s research focuses on the diplomacy leading up to the war. Drawing on archives from all relevant countries, this book argues that domestic political forces in the United States, Spain, and Cuba so constrained policymakers that war was practically a foregone conclusion, especially after the Maine exploded.
  326.  
  327. Find this resource:
  328.  
  329. Tebbel, John. America’s Great Patriotic War with Spain: Mixed Motives, Lies and Racism in Cuba and the Philippines, 1898–1915. Manchester Center, VT: Marshall Jones, 1996.
  330.  
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  332.  
  333. Tebbel highlights the racist manipulations of the yellow press and argues that it was a prime factor in driving the United States into war. Like O’Toole 1984 (cited under the Conflict), Tebbel’s book reads almost like a novel.
  334.  
  335. Find this resource:
  336.  
  337. Tone, John Lawrence. War and Genocide in Cuba, 1895–1898. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
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  340.  
  341. Tone’s analysis focuses on the Spanish-Cuban War; the subsequent omission of “Cuban” from the name “Spanish-American War” is revealing. Tone puts the emphasis back on the original combatants in his overview of a relatively unexamined dimension of the conflict (see also Pérez 1998, Pérez 2008a[bibItem-0044], and Pérez 2008b, both cited under Interpretations of American Motives).
  342.  
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  344.  
  345. Wilkerson, Marcus M. Public Opinion and the Spanish-American War: A Study in War Propaganda. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1932.
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  348.  
  349. Wilkerson argues that the yellow press was a central variable in the jingoistic war movement in the United States. The yellow press retains its central explanatory role in popular thinking on the war, despite recent scholarship that suggests that it had a marginal effect both on the decision makers themselves and most of the population. Republished in 1967 (New York: Russell & Russell).
  350.  
  351. Find this resource:
  352.  
  353. Interpretations of American Motives
  354. The contradictions in the existing evidence, coupled with the disconnect between the lofty idealism accompanying America’s entry in the war and the base imperialism that followed it, have led to diverse explanations for American foreign policy in 1898. Debate over America’s “true” motives permeates the scholarship of the field; the sources included in this section tend to offer unusually clear defenses of one interpretive framework or another, with the two major interpretive frameworks building around economic and cultural explanations. (The reader should note that even among these sources, the authors usually acknowledge the merit of the “other side,” while some sources borrow liberally from both perspectives.) Economic Interpretations typically describe the humanitarian arguments offered at the war’s outset as a smokescreen, and argue that a cabal of imperialists engineered events to enhance America’s wealth and power. Cultural and Ideological Interpretations emphasize the missionary component of American nationalism and stress race, social Darwinism, religion, or the desire to spread American values abroad. The economic and cultural frameworks are not necessarily incompatible, but some of their conclusions, regarding, for instance, the sincerity of American humanitarianism, are irreconcilable. A couple of influential interpretations overlap with these broad categories but are sufficiently unique to avoid categorization. Field 1978 complains of the superficiality of most analyses, as well as their inability to integrate chance occurrence, their lack of evidence, and their garbled inconsistency. The author develops an alternative interpretation rooted in technological advancements and the importance of contingency. Louis Pérez (Pérez 1998, Pérez 2008a, Pérez 2008b), meanwhile, argues that the United States intervened in Cuba to prevent Cuban independence and preserve its own hegemony; in the process, it manufactured a self-glorifying narrative to justify its ambitions.
  355.  
  356. Field, James A., Jr. “American Imperialism: The Worst Chapter in Almost Any Book.” American Historical Review 83.3 (June 1978): 644–668.
  357.  
  358. DOI: 10.2307/1861842Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  359.  
  360. Field criticizes textbook treatments of late-19th-century US foreign policy, which try to blend the economic and cultural explanations in what he regards as an incoherent manner. Neither recommends support on their own, he contends, and combining them amplifies their flaws. He proposes instead an account built on technological advances and the consequences of contingency. Interesting replies from leading scholars follow the article, with a final rebuttal from Field.
  361.  
  362. Find this resource:
  363.  
  364. Pérez, Louis A., Jr. The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
  365.  
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  367.  
  368. Pérez is the leading historian of Cuban-American relations; this book demonstrates his erudition and originality. Exhaustively surveying American accounts of the war, Pérez is struck by the omission of the Cubans, the invention (as he characterizes it) of American moral purpose, and the neglect of economic analysis that they demonstrate, particularly histories from the early decades following the war.
  369.  
  370. Find this resource:
  371.  
  372. Pérez, Louis A., Jr. Cuba in the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008a.
  373.  
  374. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375.  
  376. Extending the line of analysis begun Pérez 1998 to include a broader range of history, the author focuses on how Americans have long blended imperial sentiments toward Cuba with a self-understanding of themselves as properly suited to rule its people. The book shows how constructions of self and others occur in an integrated way.
  377.  
  378. Find this resource:
  379.  
  380. Pérez, Louis A., Jr. On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008b.
  381.  
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383.  
  384. A partner, as it were, of Pérez 2008a, this title emphasizes the role that the United States has played in shaping Cuban identity. Highlighting the deep social and cultural relations between the peoples of Cuba and the United States, Pérez makes clear the contribution to national identities of international influences.
  385.  
  386. Find this resource:
  387.  
  388. Economic Interpretations
  389. The huge raft of scholarship emphasizing the centrality of economic interests to US foreign policy often identifies the Spanish-American War as the launching point of its modern, more ambitious phase. Sources included in this entry that offer a primarily economic, and often Marxist, argument to explain US policy include Schoonover 2003 (cited under Connection with European Norms), Jacobson 2000 (cited under Postwar Colonialism and the Anti-imperialist Debate), and Williams 1969. Rosenberg 1982 (cited under Expansionism and the Anti-imperialism Debate), Miller 2011 (cited under Cultural and Ideological Interpretations), and Pérez 1998 (cited under Interpretations of American Motives) also interpret American policy motives from a perspective strongly shaped by an economic perspective. These analyses, excepting perhaps Williams 1969, all derive to some degree from the research published in LaFeber 1963, which was updated in LaFeber 1993. Foner 1972 expands the evidentiary basis for the claim that the United States entered the Spanish-American War not for its stated humanitarian purposes, but to set the stage for the imperialism that followed. Dmentyev 1979 explains the logic of this perspective in some detail, as does McCormick 1990. Hamilton 2010 offers a sustained, direct critique of the economic interpretation.
  390.  
  391. Dmentyev, Igor P. USA: Imperialists and Anti-imperialists (The Great Foreign Policy Debate at the Turn of the Century). Moscow: Progress, 1979.
  392.  
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  394.  
  395. An interesting take on US foreign policy, from a Soviet scholar who assumes a surprisingly conventional view of imperialism as the product of a few influential policymakers seeking to expand US access to markets abroad.
  396.  
  397. Find this resource:
  398.  
  399. Foner, Philip S. The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, 1895–1902. 2 vols. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972.
  400.  
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  402.  
  403. Foner draws heavily on sources from Cuba and the labor movement to develop a well-researched and well-documented argument that is unremittingly hostile to any notion of American benignity.
  404.  
  405. Find this resource:
  406.  
  407. Hamilton, Richard F. America’s New Empire: The 1890s and Beyond. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2010.
  408.  
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  410.  
  411. Hamilton here sets as his task the goal of systematically dismantling the economic interpretation, arguing that most of its assumptions are flawed and that little evidence supports its conclusions. His counterevidence succeeds in showing that the effects of America’s policies are not what economic interpretations argue they should have been, but this does not mean that the intentions of those actors was not as they argued.
  412.  
  413. Find this resource:
  414.  
  415. LaFeber, Walter. The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963.
  416.  
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  418.  
  419. One of the two or three most important books in the field, LaFeber’s classic analysis essentially created, with Williams 2009 (cited under US Foreign Policy), the economic explanation of the Spanish-American War. All subsequent research is indebted to LaFeber’s argument that US foreign policy in 1898 (and beyond) was driven primarily by the desire to enhance its economic interests. Thirty-fifth-anniversary edition published in 1998.
  420.  
  421. Find this resource:
  422.  
  423. LaFeber, Walter. The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations. Vol. 2, The American Search for Opportunity, 1865–1913. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
  424.  
  425. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521381857Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  426.  
  427. This work both updates the earlier LaFeber 1963 and carries its analysis further into the future to show the continuity in America’s policies surrounding the war with dollar diplomacy, the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, and other policies.
  428.  
  429. Find this resource:
  430.  
  431. McCormick, Thomas J. China Market: America’s Quest for Informal Empire, 1893–1901. Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1990.
  432.  
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  434.  
  435. Describes the glut theory of overproduction and underconsumption as the main catalyst for war, as American business sought access to the fabled Chinese market to ease domestic economic pressure. Economic unrest and social dislocation made this policy rational and attractive to policymakers. Originally published in 1967 (Chicago: Quadrangle).
  436.  
  437. Find this resource:
  438.  
  439. Williams, William A. 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.
  440.  
  441. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  442.  
  443. Focusing on a narrower time frame than his classic overview of US foreign policy (Williams 2009, cited under US Foreign Policy), this book develops Williams’s thesis that business interests accounted for America’s emergence on the world stage, often to the detriment of its values and soft power.
  444.  
  445. Find this resource:
  446.  
  447. Cultural and Ideological Interpretations
  448. Cotkin 1992 offers an excellent synthesis of American thought during the 1890s, with one prominent strand being social Darwinism; Hofstadter 1992 remains the best guide to understanding its place in American thought. Both books shed light on how Americans could have embarked on the foreign-policy adventures they did in 1898; Ninkovich 2009 makes that connection clearly and convincingly. Clymer 1986 highlights the influence of religious ideas; Hoganson 1998, those rooted in gender constructs. Miller 2011 provides the best available window into popular attitudes, while McCartney 2006 shows how American leaders interpreted events much like their constituents. Rhodes 1996 systematically argues that ideas, not interests, accounted for the change in America’s approach to foreign policy in the 1890s. Elias 2010 and Gems 2006 highlight the role of sports in spreading American culture and selling imperialism to the American public.
  449.  
  450. Clymer, Kenton J. Protestant Missionaries in the Philippines, 1898–1916: An Inquiry into the American Colonial Mentality. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.
  451.  
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  453.  
  454. One of the many studies to emphasize the religious strain in American thought and culture as motivating a missionary and sometimes crusading spirit.
  455.  
  456. Find this resource:
  457.  
  458. Cotkin, George. Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture, 1880–1900. New York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992.
  459.  
  460. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  461.  
  462. Explains the main currents of American intellectual life during the Gilded Age, subsuming them under the overarching motif “progress.” Cotkin’s account makes clear how cultural currents made overseas activism attractive.
  463.  
  464. Find this resource:
  465.  
  466. Elias, Robert. The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad. New York: New Press, 2010.
  467.  
  468. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  469.  
  470. An interesting analysis of the political uses of sport, Elias’s book shows how baseball was pressed into the service of America’s imperial program. Baseball’s entertainment value helped manipulate opinion both in the United States and its conquered lands.
  471.  
  472. Find this resource:
  473.  
  474. Gems, Gerald R. The Athletic Crusade: Sport and American Cultural Imperialism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
  475.  
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  477.  
  478. Sports were intended by American leaders to assimilate colonial people to American norms, but they often had the unintended effect of empowering those peoples to subvert a dominant ethos designed to marginalize them.
  479.  
  480. Find this resource:
  481.  
  482. Hofstadter, Richard. Social Darwinism in American Thought. Boston: Beacon, 1992.
  483.  
  484. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  485.  
  486. Still the best overview of a construct that influenced every field of American thought and culture during the 1880s and 1890s. Social Darwinism’s suggestion of natural hierarchies and the need both for individuals and societies to adapt to their context generated a mindset that made the status quo feel like falling behind. Originally published in 1944 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press).
  487.  
  488. Find this resource:
  489.  
  490. Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
  491.  
  492. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  493.  
  494. An important reinterpretation that shows how social constructions of gender drove policymaking during an age when the “manly virtues” and “martial spirit” were celebrated.
  495.  
  496. Find this resource:
  497.  
  498. McCartney, Paul T. Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006.
  499.  
  500. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  501.  
  502. Links prevailing intellectual and cultural themes, including liberal Protestantism, racism, liberal democratic norms, and social Darwinism, to official policy discourse. The book shows how both the war and its imperial aftermath could be seen at the time as necessary policy choices, given the leaders’ worldview and the circumstances they faced, without intervening economic interests being required as the central causal explanation.
  503.  
  504. Find this resource:
  505.  
  506. Miller, Bonnie M. From Liberation to Conquest: The Visual and Popular Cultures of the Spanish-American War of 1898. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.
  507.  
  508. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  509.  
  510. Although Miller defends the economic explanation for why American leaders pursued the policies they did, she finds the cultural explanation, especially regarding race, to be compelling when describing the views of the mass public. Her discussion of how racial depictions of Cubans and Filipinos by white cultural entrepreneurs evolved on the basis of their status in policy discourse is especially instructive.
  511.  
  512. Find this resource:
  513.  
  514. Ninkovich, Frank A. Global Dawn: The Cultural Foundation of American Internationalism, 1865–1890. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
  515.  
  516. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  517.  
  518. Ninkovich has written several books exploring the roots of the imperial impulse in American identity, with an emphasis on its liberal universalism. This book provides the authoritative account of the cultural and ideological building blocks of the late-19th-century imperial mindset, which culminated in the launching of America’s globalizing project. Necessary reading.
  519.  
  520. Find this resource:
  521.  
  522. Rhodes, Edward. “Sea Change: Interest-Based vs. Cultural-Cognitive Accounts of Strategic Choice in the 1890s.” Security Studies 5.4 (Summer 1996): 73–124.
  523.  
  524. DOI: 10.1080/09636419608429289Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  525.  
  526. In this rigorous analysis, Rhodes demonstrates that changes in America’s strategic posture clearly reflected changes in worldview and analytic thought rather than changes in the country’s conditions. To those who wonder why the United States embarked on its imperial course in the 1890s and not before (or later), this essay provides a clear answer.
  527.  
  528. Find this resource:
  529.  
  530. The Role of President McKinley
  531. President William McKinley left a meager record from which to gauge his intentions. Did he manipulate events leading up to the Spanish-American War in order to implement an imperial vision, or was he forced by circumstances to enter a war not of his choosing? Tied into this debate is the question of whether he was a strong or weak leader in general. Interpreting his motives has become central to efforts to determine how we should understand the war and its expansionist outcome. Smith 1993 offers a fine overview of the debates surrounding McKinley’s role that doubles as a guide to the literature. Dobson 1988 provides the broadest overview of McKinley’s foreign policy; Dobson argues, along with Welch (Welch 1985), that McKinley did not intend colonialism as the outcome of the war, at least not at its outset. The classic revisionist rebuttal is that imperialism was a goal all along. This interpretation is advocated in Pérez 1998 (cited under Interpretations of American Motives), Foner 1972 (cited under Economic Interpretations), and other works that embrace economic interpretations of the events. Leech 1959 and Morgan 1963 are thorough, sympathetic biographies of McKinley that easily shed the most light on his character and politics. Both argue that McKinley was not the sinister schemer that economic interpretations often imply. Gould 1980 advances the debates by finding McKinley to be a strong leader but not necessarily an engineer for economic interests; the author’s focus on the war itself highlights how McKinley ushered in the modern presidency by capitalizing on the office’s institutional prerogatives in foreign policy. Holbo 1967 had earlier advanced a similar claim. Olcott 1916 is McKinley’s official biography. Its early publication date alone ensures its influence; Olcott defends the president against charges of weakness and indecisiveness.
  532.  
  533. Dobson, John. Reticent Expansionism: The Foreign Policy of William McKinley. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1988.
  534.  
  535. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  536.  
  537. A solid overview of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent policy of imperialism, Dobson’s book also provides more detail than is commonly available regarding the full range of American foreign policies during McKinley’s administration; this helps with context.
  538.  
  539. Find this resource:
  540.  
  541. Gould, Lewis L. The Presidency of William McKinley. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1980.
  542.  
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  544.  
  545. Gould argues that McKinley was a strong leader but not necessarily an engineer of events acting on behalf of the economic interests; his discussion of the war highlights how McKinley ushered in the modern presidency by capitalizing on the office’s institutional prerogatives in foreign policy.
  546.  
  547. Find this resource:
  548.  
  549. Holbo, Paul S. “Presidential Leadership in Foreign Affairs: William McKinley and the Turpie-Foraker Amendment.” American Historical Review 72.4 (July 1967): 1321–1335.
  550.  
  551. DOI: 10.2307/1847795Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  552.  
  553. A model of mining a narrow incident for broader significance, Holbo’s article shows how McKinley’s involvement in a debate surrounding a proposed amendment to the war resolution belies charges of weak leadership and indecisiveness.
  554.  
  555. Find this resource:
  556.  
  557. Leech, Margaret. In the Days of McKinley. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959.
  558.  
  559. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  560.  
  561. A detailed biography that provides great insight into McKinley’s background and character. Leech concludes that McKinley was pushed along by events but was neither helpless nor passive. Republished in 1999 (Newtown, CT: American Political Biography Press).
  562.  
  563. Find this resource:
  564.  
  565. Morgan, H. Wayne. William McKinley and His America. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1963.
  566.  
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  568.  
  569. In the course of writing this rich and thorough biography, Morgan also produces one of the best accounts of the politics of the era. While making clear that McKinley’s political loyalties lay with the moneyed classes, Morgan nonetheless concludes that the war was not manufactured to implement the imperialism they supported.
  570.  
  571. Find this resource:
  572.  
  573. Olcott, Charles S. The Life of William McKinley. 2 vols. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1916.
  574.  
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  576.  
  577. A little hagiographical by modern standards and with some dubious claims, but an important source for details obtained during McKinley’s lifetime. The tale about McKinley deciding to take the Philippines after praying all night comes from Olcott; it is an anecdote that reveals the author’s position on the debates. Reprinted in 1972 (New York: AMS).
  578.  
  579. Find this resource:
  580.  
  581. Smith, Ephraim K. “William McKinley’s Enduring Legacy: The Historiographical Debate on the Taking of the Philippine Islands.” In Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War & Its Aftermath. Edited by James C. Bradford, 205–249. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1993.
  582.  
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  584.  
  585. A thorough overview of the literature that organizes itself around a consideration of McKinley’s role in crafting the policies that he implemented as president.
  586.  
  587. Find this resource:
  588.  
  589. Welch, Richard E., Jr. “William McKinley: Reluctant Warrior, Cautious Imperialist.” In Traditions and Values: American Diplomacy, 1865–1945. Edited by Norman A. Graebner, 29–52. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985.
  590.  
  591. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  592.  
  593. An example of the title doubling as the thesis. Welch rejects the position that McKinley was a duplicitous mastermind forwarding popular arguments about humanitarianism to conceal his true intention to build an empire serving the interests of American businessmen.
  594.  
  595. Find this resource:
  596.  
  597. Postwar Colonialism and the Anti-imperialist Debate
  598. The imperial outcome of the Spanish-America War makes it among the most studied episodes in American history; without it, the conflict would likely be grouped with the War of 1812 and other minor conflicts. The postwar policies thus inform most analyses of the war itself and shape their presentation. Most attention is given to the Philippines, since that was the formal colonial acquisition that generated the massive debate that took place in 1899. It also led to its own war, the Philippine-American War, which was bloodier than the Spanish-American War. (This entry only skirts this conflict, seeking instead to keep attention on the Spanish-American War as much as possible, although complete exclusion of it is impossible.) Brands 1992 and Karnow 1989 focus their attention on the Philippine theater but discuss the Spanish-American War as well. Miller 1982 and Jacobson 2000 expose the hypocrisy of the missionary argument and offer a rather jaundiced view of the United States. Reuter 1967 illuminates the difficulties that Catholics in America faced in supporting a Protestant-centric missionary zeal for “Americanizing” (read: Christianizing) colonies that were already Catholic. Zimmermann 2002 highlights the influence of the so-called Large Policy group, who urged the expansionist policies that were ultimately undertaken, while Zakaria 1998 examines the geopolitical dimension of American motives. Smith and Dávila-Cox 1999, an edited volume, covers many issues germane to this topic.
  599.  
  600. Brands, H. W. Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
  601.  
  602. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  603.  
  604. A broad overview of American involvement in the Philippines, with attention given to the Spanish-American War as well as the Philippine-American War, which followed closely on its heels.
  605.  
  606. Find this resource:
  607.  
  608. Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876–1917. New York: Hill & Wang, 2000.
  609.  
  610. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  611.  
  612. Blends the economic and cultural arguments to paint a highly unflattering portrait of the dominant white American culture during the imperialist era. By Jacobson’s lights, the American people dominated others naturally and without irony, particularly when they could benefit economically from doing so.
  613.  
  614. Find this resource:
  615.  
  616. Karnow, Stanley. In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines. New York: Random House, 1989.
  617.  
  618. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  619.  
  620. A broad overview of American imperialism, with an emphasis on the Philippines and the social ramifications of the policy.
  621.  
  622. Find this resource:
  623.  
  624. Miller, Stuart Creighton. “Benevolent Assimilation”: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–1903. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982.
  625.  
  626. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  627.  
  628. A critical account that emphasizes the sheer hypocrisy of the phrase quoted in the title, which McKinley uttered in an effort to frame American imperialism as a missionary rather than selfish project. Miller obviously rejects McKinley’s claim.
  629.  
  630. Find this resource:
  631.  
  632. Reuter, Frank T. Catholic Influence on American Colonial Policies, 1898–1904. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967.
  633.  
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  635.  
  636. American missionaries described their desire to “Christianize” their new colonial possessions, despite that these inhabitants were Catholic already. Reuter shows how American Catholics negotiated this odd logic and helped to rationalize colonial policy. Includes an interesting examination of William Howard Taft’s service as envoy to the Vatican.
  637.  
  638. Find this resource:
  639.  
  640. Smith, Angel, and Emma Dávila-Cox, eds. The Crisis of 1898: Colonial Redistribution and Nationalist Mobilization. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.
  641.  
  642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643.  
  644. A collection of essays that give greater-than-usual attention to experiences of the various colonial subjects.
  645.  
  646. Find this resource:
  647.  
  648. Zakaria, Fareed. From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
  649.  
  650. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  651.  
  652. Argues that, due to lingering effects from the Civil War, the American state did not enjoy exportable power sufficient to support its expansionist ambitions until the 1890s. A realist account of the period’s foreign policy.
  653.  
  654. Find this resource:
  655.  
  656. Zimmermann, Warren. First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002.
  657.  
  658. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  659.  
  660. Takes the “Large Policy” thesis (discussed also in Dmentyev 1979, cited under Economic Interpretations), which holds that a small group of Americans, including Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Hay, engineered US foreign policy to elevate its status on the world stage. Greater emphasis on geopolitics and less on economics than other titles that forward this line of argument, but consistent with them overall.
  661.  
  662. Find this resource:
  663.  
  664. Expansionism and the Anti-imperialism Debate
  665. The imperialist outcome of the war has justifiably received the most attention; almost all studies of the conflict devote at least some attention to it. Healy 1970 and Morgan 1993 provide outstanding introductions to the subject, with the former more attentive to economic motivations. Rosenberg 1982 develops an original and important thesis: that the government and private economic interests cooperated to extend an American international economic system beginning in 1898. Pratt 1936 surveys business journals to argue that private economic interests were not the primary motivation for war, and a wealth of other sources, including religious journals, are consulted to support the author’s argument that humanitarian and related concerns were more important. Beisner 1968 offers an outstanding analysis of the anti-imperialist movement; Schirmer 1972 also covers the movement well, adopting a view shared by economic interpretations of the war. Welch 1979 additionally examines the domestic debates surrounding the imperial policies, casting a wider net, while Miller 1970 provides an interesting array of primary sources and essays that round out our understanding of the debates.
  666.  
  667. Beisner, Robert L. Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-imperialists, 1898–1900. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
  668.  
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  670.  
  671. Using leading anti-imperialists including William Graham Sumner, Andrew Carnegie, and Senator George Frisbee Hoar to structure his analysis, Beisner provides an in-depth account of the national debate around imperialism that demonstrates its profundity and stakes. Republished as recently as 1992 (Chicago: Imprint Publications).
  672.  
  673. Find this resource:
  674.  
  675. Healy, David. U.S. Expansionism: The Imperialist Urge in the 1890s. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970.
  676.  
  677. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  678.  
  679. Succinctly offers a thematic presentation of the major explanations given for American imperialism. Does not bog down the reader with detail, yet it is richly informative and balanced in its interpretation. Republished as recently as 2011.
  680.  
  681. Find this resource:
  682.  
  683. Miller, Richard H., ed. American Imperialism in 1898: The Quest for National Fulfillment. New York: Wiley, 1970.
  684.  
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  686.  
  687. A collection of primary and secondary sources that provide a wide view of the war, including essays that compare US and European imperialism, discuss the influence of the lure of the Chinese markets, and otherwise offer unusual angles.
  688.  
  689. Find this resource:
  690.  
  691. Morgan, H. Wayne. America’s Road to Empire: The War with Spain and Overseas Expansion. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.
  692.  
  693. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  694.  
  695. Morgan here makes the case that sometimes events overpower intentions. The forces leading to a war between the United States and Spain were quite powerful. Whatever the prewar intentions might have been, once the fighting was done, the arguments supporting colonialism as a postwar policy made more sense than those opposing colonialism. An excellent short overview. Originally published in 1965 (New York: Wiley).
  696.  
  697. Find this resource:
  698.  
  699. Pratt, Julius W. Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1936.
  700.  
  701. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  702.  
  703. Although many historians from the New Left dismiss Pratt’s account, which defends the view that Americans engaged Spain for humanitarian rather than economic reasons, their critiques are unpersuasive. This is still a necessary text for understanding the war’s imperial aftermath. Republished as recently as 2004.
  704.  
  705. Find this resource:
  706.  
  707. Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945. Edited by Eric Foner. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.
  708.  
  709. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  710.  
  711. Rosenberg’s pioneering research explains how the government essentially underwrote the international economic activity of private actors in a partnership deemed to be both profitable and morally worthy. Belief in American exceptionalism justified exporting America’s economic and political systems, which happened thereby to enrich the well connected. Republished as recently as 2007.
  712.  
  713. Find this resource:
  714.  
  715. Schirmer, Daniel B. Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman, 1972.
  716.  
  717. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  718.  
  719. Takes a New Left approach to the issues, framing the anti-imperialist movement as responding to what Schirmer sees as the true motive for American involvement in the Spanish-American War: economic gain.
  720.  
  721. Find this resource:
  722.  
  723. Welch, Richard E., Jr. Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899–1902. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.
  724.  
  725. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  726.  
  727. Welch illustrates the significance of imperialism to American politics, not to mention how Americans thought of themselves as a people. This book captures well the domestic turbulence generated by imperialism. Second edition published in 1987.
  728.  
  729. Find this resource:
  730.  
  731. Connection with European Norms
  732. Part of the basis of Americans’ sense of entitlement to rule over non-Americans, either formally through colonialism or informally through hegemonic domination, was the fact that Europeans had long been doing so, and Americans desired to take their place alongside them. May 1968 details how leading Americans had begun overcoming their Europhobia around this time, which created the mental space to accommodate emulating Britain in particular. Schoonover 2003 prioritizes economic motives in its analysis and shows clearly that Americans regarded themselves to be in direct competition with Europeans; Hutchison and Lehmann 1994, meanwhile, highlights the religious dimension. Non-Europeans, it should be pointed out, never significantly entered the calculations of American policymakers in any account, except as people to be either “uplifted” or exploited.
  733.  
  734. Hutchison, William R., and Hartmut Lehmann, eds. Many Are Chosen: Divine Election and Western Nationalism. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994.
  735.  
  736. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  737.  
  738. Each chapter in this edited volume describes a different European nation—including the United States—justifying its imperial program during the late 19th century with religious arguments and self-righteous proclamations of civilizing missions and the like.
  739.  
  740. Find this resource:
  741.  
  742. May, Ernest R. American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay. New York: Atheneum, 1968.
  743.  
  744. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  745.  
  746. May here suggests that influential Americans had shifted in their thinking by 1898 to embrace European norms, which included imperialism. In particular, social connections between wealthy and powerful Americans and Englishmen helped overcome the animosity that had existed between the two countries since the Revolutionary War.
  747.  
  748. Find this resource:
  749.  
  750. Schoonover, Thomas. Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
  751.  
  752. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  753.  
  754. Schoonover argues that American involvement both in the Caribbean and the Pacific reflected economic competition with European powers, in which predation of marginal people was not only acceptable but normative. An original blend of the classic economic view with an internationalist perspective that shifts the focus to competition over Asia.
  755.  
  756. Find this resource:
  757.  
  758. Manifest Destiny
  759. Many associate the concept “manifest destiny” exclusively with the period in the mid-19th century when Americans defeated Mexico in a war and challenged Great Britain over the Oregon Territory. Graebner 1968 focuses its analysis on this time frame, but the primary sources that the author collects offer a window into the imperial mindset of Americans during the Spanish-American War, too. Weinberg 1935 demonstrates that the attitude undergirding continental conquest is part and parcel of American thought, while Stephanson 1995 breaks down the cultural and ideological bases of this worldview with uncommon grace and clarity. Merk 1995 provides a more critical analysis of the concept and the scholarship surrounding it, arguing that few Americans have been as eager for conquest as conventional wisdom implies.
  760.  
  761. Graebner, Norman A., ed. Manifest Destiny. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968.
  762.  
  763. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  764.  
  765. A collection of primary sources with short introductory essays, including some that show American interest in Cuba to be longstanding by 1898.
  766.  
  767. Find this resource:
  768.  
  769. Merk, Frederick. Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History: A Reinterpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
  770.  
  771. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  772.  
  773. Merk rejects Weinberg’s thesis that manifest destiny’s acquisitive spirit reflected American identity. He argues instead that only a relatively small portion of Americans agreed with its tenets and that most have had a more generous spirit. The Spanish-American War is invoked as evidence that Americans reject colonialism as soon as they are able. Originally published in 1963 (New York: Vintage).
  774.  
  775. Find this resource:
  776.  
  777. Stephanson, Anders. Manifest Destiny: American Expansionism and the Empire of Right. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
  778.  
  779. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  780.  
  781. A major contribution to our understanding of the links between American imperialism and nationalism, Stephanson’s book explains the constellation of ideas that filled Americans with a righteous sense of entitlement to rule over others.
  782.  
  783. Find this resource:
  784.  
  785. Weinberg, Albert K. Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935.
  786.  
  787. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  788.  
  789. The authoritative review of the concept, but challenged in Merk 1995. Weinberg shows with exhaustive research how a righteous sense of entitlement to rule those outside its borders has been inextricably interwoven with American identity since the founding. Republished as recently as 1979 (New York: AMS).
  790.  
  791. Find this resource:
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