I'm enrolled in an American history graduate course on diplomacy and was wondering if anyone had an interest in hearing information on the rise of the American empire. I have been gathering resources on the subject and plan to present a paper on the origins of it in March at a conference. I didn't want to put all this information up if nobody wanted it so give me a reply to whether or not you have an interest in hearing about it or getting a reading materials list. The time period would cover 1860 to 1918. I will also include analysis on the Progressive era.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Why would you not want to put it up? You are going to be gathering the information anyway, and maybe it can be a great resource for others if they ever want to learn about the period as well.
What's the point of writing history if no one is going to read it?
I would be interested in reading your work.
And someone somewhere is interested in the subject just as you are, and if not now, then perhaps they might be searching some time in the future and stumble upon your post.
Have you not listened to one Jeffrey Tucker speech on ideas making people immortal? hahaha
Ok, my spring break is coming up at the beginning of March so I will start it around that time. I figure I'd begin with post Civil war. A good source for this would be Walter LaFeber's The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898
Unqualified Reservations is the best source for info on the rise and rule of the American Empire I know of.
Anyone interested in hearing an intellectual justification for US expansion into foreign markets should pick up Brooks Adams work called America's Economic Supremacy. Some very good stuff in there. Adams was one of the individuals who was influence in this field. He talks about what America must do in order to survive or fall into decay like England and Spain were doing at the turn of the century.
I also read Robert Beisner's Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900. I would only recommend this for the first portion of information. Beisner is very good on some of the Anti-Imperialists at the end of the 19th century but very bad on the second half which is compromised of Republicans like George Hoar, John Sherman, Benjamin Harrison. Hoar was a GOP "yes-man" who only worked inside his party which was full of expansionsts and would engage in partisan politics (choosing McKinkley over Byran even though McKinkley theoritically started the US empire aboard). John Sherman was losing his mind (literally) from age and Benjamin Harrison did nothing in the public realm to express his anti-imperialist sentiment. He doesn't cover the Anti-Imperialist League (at the end there is confusion because he talks about the league as if he were talking about them the whole time) so he doesn't cover people like Mark Twain, William Graham Sumner and others.
If you are interested in the Phillipine question, I would also read H.W. Brand's Bound to Empire: The United States and the Phillipines. It covers diplomatic relations between the US and the Phillipines during and after the war to the present. The opening chapters provide a good base of information concerning the Phillipine insurgency and U.S. impressions of it.
I'll have more titles on the way.
Andrew Cain: What's the point of writing history if no one is going to read it?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."