Embedded Empire: The United States and Colonialism

Abstract

Embedded Empire: The United States and ColonialismThis article examines the process of interimperial knowledge transfer for U.S. colonialism between the late 1890s and the interwar period. The article analyses the platforms, pathways and knowledge circuits of U.S. colonial experts. More specifically, it explores the role of intergovernmental commissions, information media and interpreters of colonial «know-how». It traces how reports, photographs, books and articles, expositions, professional organisations and academics shaped the administrative, legal, economic, environmental, medical, military and technological discourses on colonial empire in the United States. While the nationalist ideology of exceptionalism, with its strong dosage of anti-European rhetoric, infused American discourses of empire, the U.S. colonial project in the Caribbean Basin and the Pacific Ocean relied heavily on colonial ideas and practices developed by European powers and the Japanese Empire. While the British Empire served as an important reference point, the influence of Spanish, Japanese and American settler imperial insights was considerable. At the same time, American experiences also contributed to a global reservoir of colonial knowledge and were studied by many settler and colonial empires. While the United States was thus an important participant in global imperial knowledge exchanges, its nationalist ideological inventory simultaneously denied such proximities and borrowings.