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American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay
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239 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
Ernest R. May
73 books13 followersErnest Richard May was an American historian of international relations whose 14 published books include analyses of American involvement in World War I and the causes of the fall of France during World War II. His 1997 book The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis became the primary sources of the 2000 film Thirteen Days that viewed the crisis from the perspective of American political leaders. He served on the 9/11 Commission and highlighted the failures of the government intelligence agencies. May taught full time on the faculty of Harvard University for 55 years, until his death.
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January 22, 2018
Ernest May's extended essay provides a synthetic explanation of why the United States went to war with Spain. It also attempt to answer the question of why the United States did not continue to annex territories, why it did not become an outright colonial power in the European mold, during the years that followed the annexation of the Philippine Islands. As part of the coda of this speculative piece, May raises this question in the section entitled ''Some Tentative Explanation":
In 1898 the imperialist movement had been powerful, and the Senate's vote to annex the Philippines provided a starting point for a new consensus favorable to future colonial expansion. For about a year afterward such a consensus seemed in the making, foreshadowing a time when Hawaii and the Philippines would stand as merely the first members of a vast and growing colonial empire. During 1900 the new current slowed and stopped. Before long, majority opinion once again ran in the old channel. Dismissing the possibility of further colonial expansion, Lodge commented in 1903, 'The American people have lost all interest in it." How does one explain the reversal? (p. 215)
The most obvious reason is that putting down the Philippine Insurrection dampened the mood of colonial adventurism. In the nature of the synthesis he is trying to achieve, May is compelled to include this as one of three causal elements in his explanation. Yet he proposes to go beyond this to argue that public opinion had moved away from the colonialist element of imperialist sentiment for two other, more complex reasons.
To understand May's first causal element in the anticolonialist swing in public opinion one must note that his study focuses on the role of elites in the shaping of public opinion, as well as considering the means by which elected officials divine public sentiment. Without reiterating May's entire social science explanation of "elites," suffice it to say that elites are groups of people to whom others turn for information or, more importantly, opinions. Elites are generally highly educated and, at this time at least, Eurocentric. Whereas the European imperialist fashion had swept the American elites along with it in 1898, the experience of observing increasing anti-imperialist revulsion to the Boer War caused an increase in anti-imperialism in the American elites (p. 218).
To understand May's second causal factor, it is necessary to note that in his estimate there are establishment and anti-establishment elites. In the time of "psychic crisis" described by Richard Hofstadter, the establishment elites were internally divided over the issue of imperialism. These internal divisions allowed the establishment to be overwhelmed by anti-establishment elites who took extreme positions at both ends of the spectrum. In such a time of crisis, the number of people interested in foreign policy issues increases along with the circle of elites which feels qualified or called to speak on such issues. With the end of the "psychic crisis, the interested public shrank (pp. 216-217) and the conduct of foreign policy returned to the hands of the conservative (and coincidentally anti-imperialist) establishment elites (p. 223). Overseas economic expansion thus overshadowed territorial, or colonial, imperialism.
In 1898 the imperialist movement had been powerful, and the Senate's vote to annex the Philippines provided a starting point for a new consensus favorable to future colonial expansion. For about a year afterward such a consensus seemed in the making, foreshadowing a time when Hawaii and the Philippines would stand as merely the first members of a vast and growing colonial empire. During 1900 the new current slowed and stopped. Before long, majority opinion once again ran in the old channel. Dismissing the possibility of further colonial expansion, Lodge commented in 1903, 'The American people have lost all interest in it." How does one explain the reversal? (p. 215)
The most obvious reason is that putting down the Philippine Insurrection dampened the mood of colonial adventurism. In the nature of the synthesis he is trying to achieve, May is compelled to include this as one of three causal elements in his explanation. Yet he proposes to go beyond this to argue that public opinion had moved away from the colonialist element of imperialist sentiment for two other, more complex reasons.
To understand May's first causal element in the anticolonialist swing in public opinion one must note that his study focuses on the role of elites in the shaping of public opinion, as well as considering the means by which elected officials divine public sentiment. Without reiterating May's entire social science explanation of "elites," suffice it to say that elites are groups of people to whom others turn for information or, more importantly, opinions. Elites are generally highly educated and, at this time at least, Eurocentric. Whereas the European imperialist fashion had swept the American elites along with it in 1898, the experience of observing increasing anti-imperialist revulsion to the Boer War caused an increase in anti-imperialism in the American elites (p. 218).
To understand May's second causal factor, it is necessary to note that in his estimate there are establishment and anti-establishment elites. In the time of "psychic crisis" described by Richard Hofstadter, the establishment elites were internally divided over the issue of imperialism. These internal divisions allowed the establishment to be overwhelmed by anti-establishment elites who took extreme positions at both ends of the spectrum. In such a time of crisis, the number of people interested in foreign policy issues increases along with the circle of elites which feels qualified or called to speak on such issues. With the end of the "psychic crisis, the interested public shrank (pp. 216-217) and the conduct of foreign policy returned to the hands of the conservative (and coincidentally anti-imperialist) establishment elites (p. 223). Overseas economic expansion thus overshadowed territorial, or colonial, imperialism.
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