Race over Empire
Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865-1900
Eric T. L. Love
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 10/2005
Pages: 272
Subject: History, Political Science, Social Science
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807875919
DESCRIPTION
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.