By Andrew Priest

Columbia University Press, 2021, 304 pp

The United States came of age as a great power in the shadow of European empire. In 1898, with the Spanish-American War, it launched its own imperial career. This fascinating and deeply researched book explores American thinking about empire in the decades between the Civil War and the conflict with Spain.

 

Priest uncovers a vibrant debate in the United States about the dangers and opportunities of following in European imperial footsteps, often provoked by concrete British, French, German, Ottoman, and Spanish moves on the world stage. Priest shows that a strand of anti-imperial thinking (the legacy of the anticolonial American Revolution) remained prominent throughout the nineteenth century, often manifest in the claim that U.S. overseas expansion was in fact commercial rather than territorial and that the country’s ideals were meant to inspire worldwide movements toward constitutional self-rule. But anti-imperialist rhetoric was often matched by support for an ambitious global presence to accompany the United States’ rising wealth and power. Ideas of racial and civilizational hierarchy permeated the thinking of American elites, even as those elites believed in the progressive role their country could play in world affairs.

Product details

Andrew J. Priest offers a new understanding of the roots of American empire that foregrounds the longer history of perceptions of European powers. He traces the development of American thinking about European imperialism in the years after the Civil War, before the United States embarked on its own overseas colonial projects. In the eyes of both contemporaries and historians, the United States became an empire in 1898. By taking possession of Cuba and the Philippines, the nation seemed to have reached a watershed moment in its rise to power--spurring arguments over whether it should be a colonial power at all. However, the questions that emerged in the wake of 1898 built on long-standing and far-reaching debates over America's place in the world.

Andrew Priest offers a new understanding of the roots of American empire that foregrounds the longer history of perceptions of European powers. He traces the development of American thinking about European imperialism in the years after the Civil War, before the United States embarked on its own overseas colonial projects. Designs on Empire examines responses to Napoleon III's intervention in Mexico, Spain and the Ten Years' War in Cuba, Britain's occupation of Egypt, and the carving up of Africa at the Berlin Conference. Priest shows how observing and interacting with other empires shaped American understandings of the international environment and their own burgeoning power. He highlights ambivalence among American elites regarding empire as well as the prevalence of notions of racial hierarchy. While many deplored the way powerful nations dominated others, others saw imperial projects as the advance of civilization, and even critics often felt a closer affinity with European imperialists than colonized peoples.

A wide-ranging book that blends intellectual, political, and diplomatic history, Designs on Empire sheds new light on the foundations of American power.

Designs on Empire: America's Rise to Power in the Age of European Imperialism (Paperback)

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Specifications

Language

English

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Book Format

Paperback

Number of Pages

304

Author

Andrew Priest

Title

Designs on Empire

ISBN-13

9780231197458

Publication Date

August, 2021

Assembled Product Dimensions (L x W x H)

8.90 x 6.00 x 1.00 Inches

ISBN-10

0231197454