Global ambition

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(With all the talk about the civilizing benefits of US imperialism, it was 
inevitable that a book like this be published. The reviewer is a 
world-class anti-Communist asshole. The author was ambassador to 
Yugoslavia, in which capacity we can assume he gave marching orders to 
B-92, Otpor and company.)

NY Times, Oct. 23, 2002

BOOKS OF THE TIMES | 'FIRST GREAT TRIUMPH'
America's Colonial Empire? That Was No Accident
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN

In March 1897 President William McKinley took office as conflict loomed 
between the United States and Spain over the Spanish colony of Cuba. The 
new president firmly opposed both war and territorial acquisition. "We want 
no wars of conquest," he said in his inaugural address. "We must avoid the 
temptation of territorial aggression. War should never be entered upon 
until every agency of peace has failed."

Famous last words. When McKinley was assassinated in 1901, the United 
States had fought its "splendid little war" against Spain (the phrase was 
Secretary of State John Hay's) as well as a vicious three-year 
anti-guerrilla war in the Philippines, and taken possession of a colonial 
empire. Along the way, the United States emerged as a world power, a role 
that needless to say has continued to grow as the decades have passed. How 
did a country isolated on its side of the Atlantic, with virtually no army 
or navy and, more important, no imperial ambitions, acquire the attributes 
of nascent superpowerdom in so short a time?

"First Great Triumph" is Warren Zimmermann's readable and cogent answer to 
that question. A former senior career foreign service officer whose last 
post was ambassador to Yugoslavia, Mr. Zimmermann specifically credits five 
men (McKinley decidedly not among them) for the vision, determination and 
political skill that first gave the United States its global ambition. His 
book is a history of the American rise to power and a collective biography 
of Mr. Zimmermann's five heroes: Theodore Roosevelt, the assistant 
secretary of the Navy and later president; Alfred T. Mahan, the naval 
strategist; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts; Secretary of State 
John Hay; and the first American colonial administrator, Elihu Root.

In some respects "The First Great Triumph" tells a familiar tale. After 
all, no American who was half paying attention in high school missed the 
sinking of the Maine, the Rough Riders' charge up San Juan Hill or 
McKinley's midnight agony of decision over the Philippines ? all of them 
elements of this American saga.

What gives Mr. Zimmermann's book its special character is his singling out 
of Roosevelt, Lodge and company as "the fathers of American imperialism" 
and showing how their vision of the nation was transformed into reality. 
And that makes for a good story, full of craggy individualists and events 
that retain their power to amaze. Mr. Zimmerman moreover has a point of 
view, namely that American imperialism was not, as other historians have 
believed, an accident, a reluctant byproduct of events. It was there from 
the beginning.

full review: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/23/books/23BERN.html


Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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