Synopses & Reviews
A brilliant examination of national identity in a crucial period
The United States first announced its power on the international scene at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and first demonstrated that power during World War I. The years in between were a period of dramatic change, when the dynamics of industrialization rapidly accelerated the rate at which Americans were coming in contact with foreign peoples, both at home and abroad.
In Barbarian Virtues, Matthew Frye Jacobson shows how American conceptions of peoplehood, citizenship, and national identity were transformed in these crucial years by escalating economic and military involvements abroad and by the massive influx of immigrants at home. Drawing upon a diverse range
of sources--not only traditional political documents but also novels, travelogues, academic treatises, and art--Jacobson demonstrates the close relationship between immigration and expansionism. By bridging these two areas, so often left separate, he rethinks the texture of American political life in a keenly argued and persuasive history. Barbarian Virtues shows how these years set the stage for today's attitudes and ideas about "Americanism" and about immigrants and foreign policy, from Border Watch to the Gulf War.
Review
"A thoughtful analysis of America's uneasy relationship with foreignness."--
Kirkus Reviews"An excellent look at an aspect of U.S. history not often discussed or studied."--Vanessa Bush, Booklist
Synopsis
How a new American identity was forged by immigration and expansion a century ago.
In Barbarian Virtues, Matthew Frye Jacobson offers a keenly argued and persuasive history of the close relationship between immigration and America's newly expansionist ambitions at the turn of the twentieth century. Jacobson draws upon political documents, novels, travelogues, academic treatises, and art as he recasts American political life. In so doing, he shows how today's attitudes about "Americanism" -- from Border Watch to the Gulf War -- were set in this crucial period, when the dynamics of industrialization rapidly accelerated the rate at which Americans were coming in contact with foreign peoples.
About the Author
Matthew Frye Jacobson, a professor of American Studies at Yale, is the author of
Whiteness of a Different Color and
Special Sorrows. He lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
Introduction : Barbarism, virtue, and modern American nationalism -- Export markets : The world's peoples as consumers -- Labor markets : The world's peoples as American workers -- Parables of progress : Travelogues, ghetto sketches, and fictions of the foreigner -- Theories of development : Scholarly disciplines and the hierarchy of peoples -- Accents of menance : Immigrants in the republic -- Children of barbarism : Republican imperatives and imperial wards -- Conclusion : The temper of U.S. nationalism--coming of age in the Philippines.