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God's Arbiters: Americans and the Philippines, 1898-1902
Contributor(s): Harris, Susan K. (Author)
ISBN: 0199307202     ISBN-13: 9780199307203
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE:   $35.14  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: July 2013
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States - 19th Century
- Literary Criticism | American - General
- Political Science | International Relations - General
Dewey: 327.730
Series: Imagining the Americas
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (0.95 lbs) 288 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 19th Century
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
When the U.S. liberated the Philippines from Spanish rule in 1898, the exploit was hailed at home as a great moral victory, an instance of Uncle Sam freeing an oppressed country from colonial tyranny. The next move, however, was hotly contested: should the U.S. annex the archipelago? The
disputants did agree on one point: that the United States was divinely appointed to bring democracy--and with it, white Protestant culture--to the rest of the world. They were, in the words of U.S. Senator Albert Beveridge, God's arbiters, a civilizing force with a righteous role to play on the
world stage.

Mining letters, speeches, textbooks, poems, political cartoons and other sources, Susan K. Harris examines the role of religious rhetoric and racial biases in the battle over annexation. She offers a provocative reading both of the debates' religious framework and of the evolution of Christian
national identity within the U.S. The book brings to life the personalities who dominated the discussion, figures like the bellicose Beveridge and the segregationist Senator Benjamin Tillman. It also features voices from outside U.S. geopolitical boundaries that responded to the Americans' venture
into global imperialism: among them England's imperial poet Rudyard Kipling, Nicaragua's poet/diplomat Rubén Darío, and the Philippines' revolutionary leaders Emilio Aguinaldo and Apolinario Mabini. At the center of this dramatis personae stands Mark Twain, an influential partisan who was, for
many, the embodiment of America. Twain had supported the initial intervention but quickly changed his mind, arguing that the U.S. decision to annex the archipelago was a betrayal of the very principles the U.S. claimed to promote.

Written with verve and animated by a wide range of archival research, God's Arbiters reveals the roots of current debates over textbook content, evangelical politics, and American exceptionalism-shining light on our own times as it recreates the culture surrounding America's global mission at the
turn into the twentieth century.