Unexceptional Conquests - by Paul T McCartney (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Leading scholars of American empire examine the construction of American imperial identity at the tail end of the nineteenth century.

The War of 1898--also known as the Spanish-American War--was a pivotal moment in American history, in which the United States initiated an ostensibly humanitarian war against Spain in April yet emerged eight months later with a colonial empire over the people it claimed to rescue. This was immediately followed by the Philippine-American War, an ugly conflict in which the United States brutally suppressed Filipino nationalists who resisted American colonization. While historians have recognized the colonial ambitions of the United States throughout its early history, the events of 1898 highlighted, in stark clarity, the tension between the nation's exceptionalist claims to moral superiority and its highly unexceptional ambitions for imperial domination.

Unexceptional Conquests gathers some of the foremost scholars of the Gilded Age and American empire to examine American identity around 1898. Its chapters collectively argue that empire has figured more prominently in the construction of American national identity than many accounts acknowledge. As Americans grappled with the imperatives arising from their post-1898 colonial ambitions, they found themselves developing new legal and policy frameworks that challenged some inherited constructs, such as those concerning the proper scale of government or the value of self-government, while reinforcing others, such as those regarding gender, racial, and religious hierarchies. American beliefs and practices needed to bend to accommodate its new imperial status, given the unprecedented decision to acquire territories and peoples who were intended never to become states and citizens.

The contributors to this volume elucidate the cultural and intellectual origins and outcomes of these events. Without ignoring or downplaying the role of economic motivations for American conduct, this volume highlights the patterns of thought that both influence and are influenced by empire. Includes contributions by Sam Erman, Julian Go, Susan K. Harris, Fabian Hilfrich, Kristin L. Hoganson, Bonnie M. Miller, Julie Novkov, Louis A. Pérez, Bartholomew H. Sparrow, and Lanny Thompson.

Review Quotes

"Finally, thanks to Paul T. McCartney, we have a compendium showcasing the most groundbreaking contemporary scholarship on the Spanish-American War and its complex origins, consequences, and meanings and legacies. Essays ranging topically from historiography, Christian nationalism, and gender and racial politics to media culture, labor protest, and constitutional jurisprudence, among other subjects, offer a rich mosaic of interdisciplinary research on the United States's turn to 'saltwater empire' in the 1898 era. The result is an exceptionally illuminating guide to the making of a surprisingly unexceptional imperial nation."--Justin F. Jackson, author of The Work of Empire: War, Occupation, and the Making of American Colonialism in Cuba and the Philippines

"Unexceptional Conquests brings together leading scholars to examine how the imperial turn of 1898 reshaped American national identity. Through incisive and interdisciplinary essays on law, culture, race, gender, and governance, the volume demonstrates how empire left its imprint on institutions and ideas, giving legal and administrative expression to assumptions about power, belonging, and hierarchy. It is a sharp, historically grounded intervention that places empire at the center of American political development."--Colin D. Moore, Associate Professor, University of Hawai'I, author of American Imperialism and the State, 1893-1921

"With the 2026 invasion of Venezuela by the United States, it is said that we are returning to a 19th century style of imperial geopolitics. If so, then this volume is a crucial guide to the present. McCartney assembles an interdisciplinary line-up of leading scholars to explore the multiple facets of the enduring legacies of 1898 in US history. This is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the ongoing dynamics of US imperialism in the 21st century."--Adam Dahl, author of The Search for World Democracy: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Politics of Space

"In Unexceptional Conquests, Paul T. McCartney brings together an impressive cohort of scholars for a multidisciplinary conversation about how US policymakers and cultural leaders contested the meaning of 'American empire' at the crossroads of 1898. As experts in a variety of fields, the contributors navigate the contradictions in American self-images that the wars in the Caribbean and the Philippines exposed, charting how the nation rationalized the seizing of faraway territories and projecting the legacies that informed US aggressions in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries."--Jimmy L. Bryan Jr., author of The American Elsewhere: Adventure and Manliness in the Age of Expansion

"Unexceptional Conquests sheds new light on the United States' emergence as a global empire. Deploying analytical approaches from multiple disciplines, it reveals the rhetorical contortions and structural inequalities integral to building that empire. Collectively, its incisive chapters now represent the single best entry point to 1898 and its ongoing aftermaths."--Oli Charbonneau, author of Civilizational Imperatives: Americans, Moros, and the Colonial World