Synopses & Reviews
In 1823, President James Monroe announced that the Western Hemisphere was closed to any future European colonization and that the United States would protect the Americas as a space destined for democracy. Over the next century, these ideasandmdash;which came to be known as the Monroe Doctrineandmdash;provided the framework through which Americans understood and articulated their military and diplomatic role in the world.
Hemispheric Imaginings demonstrates that North Americans conceived and developed the Monroe Doctrine in relation to transatlantic literary narratives. Gretchen Murphy argues that fiction and journalism were crucial to popularizing and making sense of the Doctrineandrsquo;s contradictions, including the fact that it both drove and concealed U.S. imperialism. Presenting fiction and popular journalism as key arenas in which such inconsistencies were challenged or obscured, Murphy highlights the major role writers played in shaping conceptions of the U.S. empire.
Murphy juxtaposes close readings of novels with analyses of nonfiction texts. From uncovering the literary inspirations for the Monroe Doctrine itself to tracing visions of hemispheric unity and transatlantic separation in novels by Lydia Maria Child, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Marandiacute;a Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Lew Wallace, and Richard Harding Davis, she reveals the Doctrineandrsquo;s forgotten cultural history. In making a vital contribution to the effort to move American Studies beyond its limited focus on the United States, Murphy questions recent proposals to reframe the discipline in hemispheric terms. She warns that to do so risks replicating the Monroe Doctrineandrsquo;s proprietary claim to isolate the Americas from the rest of the world.
Review
andldquo;In these times of increasing attention to imperialism, protectionism, and U. S. intervention around the world, Gretchen Murphyandrsquo;s study of the political and cultural articulations of the Monroe Doctrine is not only welcome but also important reading. Murphy provides an insightful genealogy of how a andlsquo;principleandrsquo; first affirmed by James Monroe came to be a cornerstone of American diplomacy and military action; at the same time, she provides a model reading of how an ideological concept was developed and sustained.andrdquo;andmdash;Susan Jeffords, author of Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era
Review
andldquo;Hemispheric Imaginings makes an articulate, original argument for the centrality of the Monroe Doctrine to the nineteenth-century imagination. Gretchen Murphyandrsquo;s exploration of the cultural influence of the Monroe Doctrine, above and beyond its political effects, is long overdue.andrdquo;andmdash;Kirsten Silva Gruesz, author of Ambassadors of Culture: The Transamerican Origins of Latino Writing
Review
andldquo;To historians, this book offers an interesting example of the interplay among literature, foreign policy, and the construction of national imaginings. . . . This book is a welcome contribution to the field of transnational studies of the United States. . . . Hemispheric Imaginings provides historians of international relations new propositions to reflect upon.andrdquo;
Synopsis
"In these times of increasing attention to imperialism, protectionism, and U. S. intervention around the world, Gretchen Murphy's study of the political and cultural articulations of the Monroe Doctrine is not only welcome but also important reading. Murphy provides an insightful genealogy of how a 'principle' first affirmed by James Monroe came to be a cornerstone of American diplomacy and military action; at the same time, she provides a model reading of how an ideological concept was developed and sustained."--Susan Jeffords, author of "Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era"
Synopsis
Examines the key role that the spatial construct (embodied by the Monroe Doctrine) of the western hemisphere played in enabling and effacing U.S. empire.
About the Author
Gretchen Murphy is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
Table of Contents
Preface vii
Introduction: Writing the Hemisphere 1
1. Separate (Hemi)Spheres: John Quincy Adams, Lydia Maria Child, and the Domestic Ideology of the Monroe Doctrine 32
2. Selling Jim Crow from Salem to Yokohama 62
3. Geographic Morality and the New World 97
4. Gringos Abroad: Rationalizing Empire with Richard Harding Davis 119
Conclusion: The Remains of the Doctrine 145
Notes 159
Bibliography 171
Index 185