Race over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900 By Eric T. L. Love

This book is about race, racism, and U.S. imperialism from 1865 to 1900, from the end of the Civil War to the annexations that followed the Spanish-American War (xi). It challenges the notion that imperialists primarily used racial arguments to justify the expansion of American territory. On the contrary, anti-imperialists used racial arguments--primarily agitated by the inclusion of largely non-white populations (Cuba, Philippines, Hawaii, etc.) into the American nation. Racist notions, primarily held by the white working class that held the economic fear of losing jobs to these potential new American, labelled non-white foreigners as unfit for self-government and thus an unnecessary, unwanted, and disadvantageous economic investment for the American government. While Eric Love does not go to great lengths to seek out documents proving the voices of the masses are individually using race to counter imperialist expansion, he relies upon an analogy from astronomy--the fact that wobbling stars signal the pull from unseen planets and systems--to focus his attention on policymakers and politicians who may be viewed as wobbling in response to their constituents' demands. This is very creative, not entirely ridiculous, but also has some shortcomings in the way of rigorous scholarship.

It is the thesis of this book that in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the weight and inertia of all this history placed a range of formidable racial obstacles in the way of imperialists. I argue that as old obstacles were fortified by many new ones in an age marked by intense, ferocious, even murderous racism--the final suppression of Native Americans, the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882 and 1892, Jim Crow, the Mississippi Plan, Plessy v. Ferguson, countless race riots and lynchings--policymakers would not, and indeed did not, behave as the dominant narrative insists. They did not use the language of social Darwinism, benevolent assimilation, and the white man's burden when taking their arguments to the people: to do so would have the effect of placing hated groups at the center of their policies, disfiguring them, guaranteeing their defeat (25).

In other words, racism was not at the center of the U.S. imperialism debate. It certainly was a factor, but it was not the central argument used to justify military intervention and territorial expansion of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century as is often taught in history books. This is a strong, controversial thesis but it very well articulated and supported by documentary evidence.

(xi-26, 73-200) Eric T. L. Love Love argues that race was a component in U.S. strategy and attitudes concerning expansion, but the typical historical narrative in Love’s view has been misguided in its attachment to the white man’s burden as a pro-imperialist message. Love argues that in fact, imperialist politicians avoided race with the understanding that their constituents would be off put by racial commentary and would instead focus on alternative pathways to gaining territory like emphasizing economic gain or emphasizing the white populations of territories. Anti-imperialists in fact used race as a means to argue against annexation, arguing that adding ‘savages’ to America would be a backwards step in history. This is a great book to gain an understanding of the political discussions surrounding Imperialist vs Anti-Imperialist debates and offers a different understanding of the role race had in this historical narrative. Eric T. L. Love This book offers a counterargument to race being a catalyst to American expansion. Love asserts that race and racism actually hindered expansion due to Americans fear of annexing populations of people who weren't white. I enjoyed Love's arguments because it is a radically different take on many works on American expansionism, however this book was so boring. As my history prof said, it would have functioned better if it was shortened into an article, and I agree with her. The arguments are sound, however there is a lot of repetition with examples and arguments given for each area of potential American annexation included in this book. Eric T. L. Love

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. Race over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900

Read & download ↠ PDF, DOC, TXT, eBook or Kindle ePUB free à Eric T. L. Love

Race