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Title: The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898 by Walter Lafeber ISBN: 0-8014-8595-9 Publisher: Comstock Pub Assoc Pub. Date: October, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Foreign Policy as conspiracy
Comment: The unstated thesis of Walter Lefeber's book is that an expansionist foreign policy was a conspiracy that "the great and the good" fostered on an unsuspecting American public. Apparently there was this rather unfortunate tendency that arose after the Civil War toward emprire building and that there was an almost "illuminati" type approach by the "wise men" of American foreign policy to see that an empire was obtained.
The problem with this line of thought is that it bears very little relation to the truth. Empire building was not quite the new thing that Lefeber makes it out to be, rather these sentiments should be viewed as a continuation of manfest destiny. Once the US took the continent from the French and Spanish, eyes turned elsewhere. This was not quite the 40 year process that Lefeber makes it out to be. It was much more complex than that.
The other problem is that Lefeber, with his conspiracy approach to foreign affairs, seems to miss that the people who were apparently working together to build this overseas empire, did not really like each other that much. Theodore Roosevelt did not much care for the Adams brothers Henry and Brooks (though they were distantly related) who in turn thought him insane.
I cannot quarrel with Lefeber's scholarship and would recommend reading this book but with the proviso that at times he appears to be viewing American foreign policy as one vast conspiracy which simply is not true.
Rating: 5
Summary: A penetrating study of a forgotten yet crucial era
Comment: This book, written almost forty years ago, offers an important, fact-filled overview of a very important era in American history, one that is largely forgotten today. The New Empire does a more than credible job of filling in the huge gaps in our collective history of 1865-1898, and it turns out that something indeed happened between Reconstruction and the Spanish-American War. First, LaFeber provides a worthy overview of American expansion in these years. Next, he describes the development of expansionist ideas by examining critical policy makers and pundits such as Fredrick Jackson Turner, Henry Adams, and Alfred Thayer Mahan. Finally, he delves into the history of events and policy decisions chronologically. While his information on the 1870s and 1880s is good, it mostly serves as a springboard for his assessment of expansion and commercial imperialism in the 1890s. The final decade of the nineteenth century is a crucial time in American history. Wracked with the Panic of 1893 and the terrible depression of the following years, America first stepped out on to the world stage, largely in an effort to protect the very viability of the nation from labor unrest and anarchy. LaFeber describes all of the international issues the U.S. addressed in this era: revolutions in Latin America (and America's steadfast enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine), the strong push by both businesses and/or government for foreign markets, the question of annexation of Hawaii, the Philippines, and Cuba., and the fluid relations between America and the European powers. The depression of the 1890s convinced many influential men that America could not survive economically without developing new commercial frontiers in which to unload its surplus agriculture and, in particular, manufactures. Antiannexationist voices were muted by the late 1890s; the only debate was one of annexation vs the establishment of protectorate status to the likes of Hawaii and the Philippines.
LaFeber contends that economic issues largely explain the development of America's new imperial policy. This is argued most forcefully in his investigation of the origins of the Spanish-American War. The most important economic issues at the time were the Cuban revolution, the dangers of losing access to Chinese markets due to the machinations of countries such as Germany and Russia, the establishment of defensively important outposts in the Far East, and the construction of an isthmian canal in Latin America. He does a wonderful job of describing the wavering opinions of policy makers and businessmen in the 1890s and of America's reorganization of political alliances with the European powers, Russia, and Japan. He makes a forceful argument for his economic explanation of the war with Spain in 1898. McKinley was not alone in trying to avoid war, but he and many other leaders came to realize that America could not compete economically without establishing foreign markets and that stability and guaranteed access to such markets would require annexation of strategic areas and the development of a strong navy with which to secure and maintain access to foreign ports.
This book is a wonderful source of information on American foreign policy from 1865 to 1898. It is rather easy to point to the Spanish-American War as the herald of America's transformation from isolationism to globalism, but LaFeber proves that the U.S. began to aggressively pursue a policy of commercial imperialism in the mid-1890s. This is not an all-inclusive history, however. It can be argued that LaFeber relies too intently on economics in his description of America's evolving foreign policy. This is true to some extent, but he does not dismiss other factors in choosing to concentrate on economics. All in all, I would recommend this book wholeheartedly. It is enlightening to penetrate the veil of these forgotten years to see how a progression of events in and outside America set the stage for America's ardent stride into the role of global and commercial superpower. Those who begin their stories of American commercial and diplomatic expansion with the Spanish-American War and the introduction of the Open Door Notes would do well to read The New Empire and follow the true beginnings of the national transformation back into the 1890s.
Rating: 4
Summary: Extremely Thorough and Interesting...for the most part.
Comment: While the American Revolution and the Civil War are both extremely important periods in the history of the United States, the tendency of many teachers to overemphasize these two eras leads to a peculiar gap in American knowledge, especially when concerning America's period of economic and landed expansion. As Walter LaFeber impresses upon us from the very preface of his book, these formative years are some of the most important in the history of the United States; the opinions and policies shaped through the crises of the late 19th century impacted not only the foreign relations of the time, but created the base from which America's current foreign policy grows and shows many of the reasons for our prominent place upon the global stage.
The basic premise of LaFeber's argument is that all roots of American expansion and imperialism in the 19th century are economically based. There are many observable reasons for this economic instability, but the most important argument is that as a result of expanded production and an agricultural and industrial surplus, American companies needed new markets in order to survive. Yet as American converted from intense agricultural cultivation to industrialization, it became increasingly obvious to policymakers and intellectuals alike that due to the hard competition in existing European industrial markets, expansion into unexplored world markets was now essential for America's economic survival. According to LaFeber, the importance of these new foreign markets, especially in Latin America and Asia, becomes the driving force in all foreign policy decisions, forcing Americans, in a sense of self-preservation, from her self-imposed seclusion into participating in global politics.
Because this book as a whole is extremely well written and fairly impartial, it is very jarring to note the few times that the author does descend into either idealization or vilification. For instance, when explaining the ultimate reasons for the Spanish-American War, it is interesting to notice however the extreme lengths to which this author does his best to vindicate President William McKinley from the popular opinion of spinelessness. In contrast to the carefully accurate (if to a small degree, pro-American) description of the most of the policymakers involved, many times President McKinley is described in glowing terms that seem out of odds from the rest of the book's candid views. Terms such as "superb" and "uncommon" are used quite frequently to describe both the President and his actions; at every turn LaFeber is trying too hard to convince us of McKinley's political mastery and his decidedly controlling role in the declaration of war upon the Spanish (instead of blaming the whole affair upon McKinley's spinelessness and the pressure of the public and the press), and this becomes bothersome after the first few pages.
As the author is a man in a field of men, it is also bit disappointing but perhaps not surprising that Walter LaFeber's book focuses entirely upon the influential men of the time period. Indeed, through the entire book, there are only four women mentioned: Mrs. Gresham, the wife of Walter Quintin Gresham II, Julia Ward Howe, an author named along with Mark Twain and James Russell Lowell, the Queen Regent of Spain, Mariá Cristina, and the Queen Liliuokalani, ruler of Hawaii from 1891-95. At most, these influential women, and especially the Queens, were given only a couple lines on a few pages--nothing compared to the incredible depth of analysis presented on the influential men of the day. Despite the admittedly small numbers of significant women in the state and federal governments during this time period, it would be encouraging for someone as respected as Walter LaFeber to realize the importance of women in history--as 50 percent of the population, these women have had a considerable impact upon the shaping of ages and deserve more than just a few sentences.
Moreover, throughout this 400 odd page book, the reader is overwhelmed by evidence and quotations--footnotes can and have taken up all but a paragraph of space on the top, and even the "selected" bibliography is 8 pages long. While showing the exhaustiveness of LaFeber's research and quite impressive in its scope, this obvious exploration into every little detail is definitely overwhelming in the text and for those of us not students of history, it is extremely overwhelming at times, necessitating many readings and in some places simply obscuring the point that the author is laboring to make. This is extremely sad, because LaFeber has something very important to say and it should not be ignored, especially by the general public, who, despite most New York Time's reviewers, are not all intellectuals and may have some difficulty with the oftentimes superfluous detail.
Despite these and a few other flaws this book as a whole is thoroughly researched, skillfully laid out and clearly written, roughly succeeding in its attempt to explain an exceedingly complex subject in such a way that all the interconnections between countries and their policies are comprehensible even to a novice. As America becomes ever more present in global politics, and as America's current foreign policy and especially our tendency to concern ourselves in other nation's business can in some part be traced to the world economic ties that were formulated during America's Age of Expansion, this book is important for all Americans to read as we struggle to understand both our country's actions and its proper place among the world powers.
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