World Class Education www.kean.edu 1 Topic 11 2 What is imperialism? The “New Imperialism” – Africa, Asia, Caribbean Causes of American overseas expansion - Imperialism The Spanish American War Emergence of America as a new World Power 3 John Hopson, Imperialism (1902) – domestic overproduction – domestic under-consumption - new markets – overseas investment Vladimir Lenin, “Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism”(1916) – “exploitation of …small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations” – “intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations” Niall Ferguson (Harvard University/ Oxford University) , “No organisation in history has done more to promote the free movement of goods, capital and labour than the British Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. And no organisation has done more to impose Western norms of law, order and governance around the world.” 4 The Industrial Revolution The End of the American Continental Expansion The “New Imperialism” The Apostles of Empire “Non-colonial imperial expansion” 5 Alfred Thayer Mahan Albert J. Beveridge William McKinley Theodore Roosevelt 6 The Influence of Sea Power On History, 1660-1783 (1890) 7 “We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the world. The Pacific is our ocean... Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? China is our natural customer... The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East....” 8 McKinley on taking the Philippines “…that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them….” 9 “The guns that thundered off Manila and Santiago left us echoes of glory, but they also left us a legacy of duty. If we drove out a medieval tyranny only to make room for savage anarchy we had better not have begun the task at all.” 10 China (The Open Door Policy) Pacific (Hawaii, Philippines, Guam. Midway Island, Wake island) Latin America (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Central America, Virgin Island ) Panama Canal 11 Sympathy for Cuban rebels Decline of Spanish Empire Economic Interests –sugar interests “Yellow” Journalism –William Randolph Hearst / Joseph Pulitzer Sinking of the battleship Maine (1898) 12 Hawaii (1898) Samoan islands / Midway (1899) Spanish-American War (1898) Annexation of Philippines Open Door Policy - China (1900) Boxer Rebellion (China, 1900) Puerto Rico (1900/1917/1952) Panama Canal (1903) Teddy Roosevelt - Corollary to Monroe Doctrine (1904) Teddy Roosevelt – Big Stick Diplomacy Cruse of the “Great White Fleet” (1907) America continued intervention in the Caribbean (late 19th and 20th Centuries) 13 America becomes a World Power Takes its place with Britain, France, Germany as an imperial power – “non-colonial expansion” – emphasis on economic penetration v outright ownership Power to be reckoned with in the Pacific and Caribbean regions and world wide 14 David. Healy, U.S. Expansionism: The Imperialist Urge in the 1890s Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists, 1898-1900.