Summary Of The Article 'Race, Empire, And Transnational History'

My name is Thomas McCormick. I was reading your article “Race, Empire, and Transnational History,” on the colonial history of the United States and I found it interesting to raise a different point of view on the subject. I’m interested in researching about the area and I have recently published an article titled “From Old Empire to New: The Changing Dynamics and Tactics of American Empire”. In my article, I try to provide the explanations for growth of American power at the end of the nineteenth century and its empire building in the Caribbean and Western Pacific, from Puerto Rico and Cuba to Hawaii and the Philippines. The United States used to be an anticolonial republic where imperialism was not part of the national model. However, this myth is contrasted against the reality of a nation that expanded West and South and engaged in the genocide of indigenous peoples …show more content…
You argued that racial politics served the U.S. empire, and how empire-building in turn transformed ideas of race and nation in both the United States and the Philippines. You tried to characterize Philippine-American colonial history as struggle over sovereignty and recognition. Not only you focused on the racial politics and division, but also you provided other division within the Philippines between “civilized” Christians and “savage” Muslims. According to your article, there was calibrated colonialism for “civilized” Christians that gradually gave them self-governance as they demonstrated their “civilized capabilities”. On the other hand, “savage” Muslims were first governed by Americans and later then by “civilized” Christians who proved themselves carrying responsibility of “white man’s burden”. You conclude that this racial vision of imperial nation-building collided with U.S. nativist efforts to insulate the United States from its colonies, even at the cost of Philippine