Across the course of American history, imperialism and anti-imperialism have been awkwardly paired as influences on the politics, culture, and diplomacy of the United States. The Declaration of Independence, after all, is an anti-imperial document, cataloguing the sins of the metropolitan government against the colonies. With the Revolution, and again in 1812, the nation stood against the most powerful empire in the world and declared itself independent. As noted by Ian Tyrrell and Jay Sexton, however, American "anti-imperialism was clearly selective, geographically, racially, and constitutionally." Empire's Twin broadens our conception of anti-imperialist actors, ideas, and actions; it charts this story across the range of American history, from the Revolution to our own era; and it opens up the transnational and global dimensions of American anti-imperialism. By tracking the diverse manifestations of American anti-imperialism, this book highlights the different ways in which historians can approach it in their research and teaching.
The contributors cover a wide range of subjects, including the discourse of anti-imperialism in the Early Republic and Civil War, anti-imperialist actions in the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution, the anti-imperial dimensions of early U.S. encounters in the Middle East, and the transnational nature of anti-imperialist public sentiment during the Cold War and beyond. Contributors: Laura Belmonte, Oklahoma State University; Robert Buzzanco, University of Houston; Julian Go, Boston University; Alan Knight, University of Oxford; Ussama Makdisi, Rice University; Erez Manela, Harvard University; Peter Onuf, Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, Monticello, and University of Virginia; Jeffrey Ostler, University of Oregon; Patricia Schechter, Portland State University; Jay Sexton, University of Oxford; Ian Tyrrell, University of New South Wales
Industry Reviews
"This rich and provocativeargument invites wide-ranging conversationabout variations and disjunctions in thehistory of anti-imperialism...The result is anengaging collection that advances our understanding in part through its productively untidy scope."-Mary A. Renda, Journal of American History (March 2016) "Historians are increasingly turning their attention to the study of the United States as an empire. But what of those Americans who challenged the nation's expansionist world role? The superb essays in Empire's Twin brilliantly examine the phenomenon of anti-imperialism. They demonstrate that America's rise to globalism was neither preordained nor uncontested. By shining light on this important but neglected topic, Ian Tyrrell andJay Sexton have done historians of the United States and the world a tremendous service."-Andrew Preston, Cambridge University, author of Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy "Empire's Twin is an important beginning to a conversation that should be taking place (and largely is not) about the degree to which the United States has deserved its reputation as an anti-imperialist nation. The authors offer provocative explanations about the motivations and extent of U.S. anti-imperial action and ideology. Everyone interested in how the U.S. exercise of power is and has been perceived by others should read this collection. The writing is uniformly accessible to a wide array of readers."-Anne Foster, Indiana State University, author of Projections of Power: The United States and Europe in Colonial Southeast Asia, 1919-1941 "Empire's Twin spans space, time, and the disciplines to craft a breathtaking new approach to an underexplored area of U.S. history. Moving from the revolutionary era to the 1980s, it documents anti-imperialism in U.S. history and depicts it as a tradition with a long, complex, and surprising history. This is a bold and exciting book, featuring some of the most distinguished scholars in the history of U.S. foreign relations, tackling a crucial intellectual problem at the cutting edge of historical scholarship today."-Christopher Capozzola, MIT, author of Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen
