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Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State (Paperback)
$29.95
On Our Shelves Now
Description
At the end of the nineteenth century the United States swiftly occupied a string of small islands dotting the Caribbean and Western Pacific, from Puerto Rico and Cuba to Hawaii and the Philippines. Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State reveals how this experiment in direct territorial rule subtly but profoundly shaped U.S. policy and practice—both abroad and, crucially, at home. Edited by Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano, the essays in this volume show how the challenge of ruling such far-flung territories strained the U.S. state to its limits, creating both the need and the opportunity for bold social experiments not yet possible within the United States itself. Plunging Washington’s rudimentary bureaucracy into the white heat of nationalist revolution and imperial rivalry, colonialism was a crucible of change in American statecraft. From an expansion of the federal government to the creation of agile public-private networks for more effective global governance, U.S. empire produced far-reaching innovations.
Moving well beyond theory, this volume takes the next step, adding a fine-grained, empirical texture to the study of U.S. imperialism by analyzing its specific consequences. Across a broad range of institutions—policing and prisons, education, race relations, public health, law, the military, and environmental management—this formative experience left a lasting institutional imprint. With each essay distilling years, sometimes decades, of scholarship into a concise argument, Colonial Crucible reveals the roots of a legacy evident, most recently, in Washington’s misadventures in the Middle East.
About the Author
Alfred W. McCoy is the J. R. W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of A Question of Torture and The Politics of Heroin. Francisco A. Scarano is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of Puerto Rico: Cinco siglos de historia.
Praise for Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State…
“The superb essays in this volume admirably provide a broad approach to understanding the centuries-long growth of American power.”—Walter LaFeber, author of The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860–1898
“Colonial Crucible is precisely the book we need now, in the aftermath of Abu Ghraib and all the other revelations about the ‘mission’ in Iraq. . . . An essential reference book on the consequences of empire for the metropole and its colonies.”—Lloyd Gardner, author of The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present
“Brilliantly illustrates the myriad ways in which the costs of empire-building are borne, although neither equally nor obviously, by both colonizers and the colonized.”—Franklin W. Knight, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University
“This wide-ranging and incisive set of studies makes an invaluable contribution to the debate of the American empire. Summing Up: Highly recommended.”—K. Kumar, Choice
“Colonial Crucible is an impressive compilation of original research. It is essential reading for anyone interested in colonialism, internationalism, and transnationalism involving the ‘United States of the world.’”—Hiroshi Kitamura, Journal of American History
“[Colonial Crucible] defies America’s denial of its imperial past while also questioning the limits of American exceptionalism in American historiography and American studies. . . . an impressive, remarkable and exciting achievement.”—CENTRO
“Colonial Crucible should end any discussion as to whether the category ‘empire’ applies to the United States. In this exceptionally coherent set of essays, the editors make good their subtitle, for this is the most exacting account that one could wish about the way in which empire made America and, in particular, the American state. This book, appropriately, is dedicated to William Appleman Williams, whose early challenge to the complacency of American exceptionalist historiography Colonial Crucible honors and extends.”—Marilyn Young, Pacific Historical Review
