Imperial Rhetoric Research Articles

'A righteous cause': war propaganda and Canadian fiction, 1915–1921

War fiction enjoys a long critical and historical legacy in Canada, although little attention has been paid to the many novels and stories published during and immediately after the First World War. The line between literature and propaganda in many works of this period is sometimes pronounced, sometimes difficult to distinguish. Popular novelists such as Gilbert Parker and Ralph Connor used their writings and widespread influence overtly to support the Allied propaganda effort. Others, such as Stephen Leacock, L.M. Montgomery and Harry M. Wodson, reflected the rhetoric of imperialism, total victory and Germanophobia that effective propaganda had made an intrinsic part of wartime discourse in Canada. By recovering, contextualising and analysing fictional works about war published between 1915 and 1921, this article seeks a deeper understanding of the complicated connections among war, propaganda, literature and Canadian society.

Imperial designs: the Royal Bank of Canada in the Caribbean

Canada’s role in international affairs is generally cast in a favourable light, especially in contrast with the United States. Yet at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a brief period of imperialist rhetoric among the Canadian business elite, the bankers of Toronto and Montreal in particular, who argued the benefits of an annexationist policy for the British West Indies to complement their deepening financial links to the Caribbean region. Focusing on the Royal Bank of Canada, this essay examines this episode in Canadian foreign policy by recounting the history of Canadian banking expansion in the Caribbean while demonstrating the connections between economic and trade policy and the ideologies of Canadian Anglo-Saxonism that shaped the Canadian financial elite’s vision of its role in maintaining the integrity of the British empire. It argues that, rather than being mere ‘surrogates’ to American empire, as Canadian business historians have argued, Canadian bankers were aggressive, active and independent players in the conquest of foreign markets.

Education, empire and social change in nineteenth century England

This article discusses the effects of imperialism on British (or chiefly English) social life and education in the nineteenth century rather than examining the effects on the colonised as is usually done. It is shown that the nineteenth century was infused with different visual and written images which helped develop attitudes and ideas which influenced social change in Britain. The “imperial gaze” demonstrated a fascination with the unknown and exotic; a scientific curiosity to discover, collect, classify and explain; an economic desire to find and exploit; and mixed motivations from religious, humanitarian and nationalistic impulses to convert, “civilise” and dominate. In different ways and at different levels this entailed a wish to “know” and an urge to pass on presumed “truths” that interlocked imperial influences into educational enterprise, although not necessarily within formal schooling. As the century progressed, events within the expanding empire, combining with scientific theories, helped to develop cultural arrogance, dominated by ideas of white, Western superiority. Yet there was no homogenous, uncontested discourse. As post‐imperial debates suggest, chronological shifts, differing gender and class responses are significant. Effects could be paradoxical as those of imperial opportunities and rhetoric were on women's lives. Examples from other imperial nations, especially France and the Netherlands, indicate parallel imperial, sometimes imperialistic, concerns and interests and varying consequences, but in different contexts. The paper ends with some suggestions on how the difficulties of analysing the effects of empire on social change and education could be addressed within history of education.

Brother or Other? Adolescence and Native Relations in the British and German Adventure Novels of Sub-Saharan Africa, 1870–1905

By examining three tropes of the adolescent's rite of passage to a colonizer in several British and German adventure novels of the late nineteenth century, this article reveals fundamental problems with the underlying binary constructions of the novel that are illuminated by the coming of age process. While critics typically view the young adult as either child-like or the mouthpiece of adult imperialist rhetoric, this article argues instead that they should be viewed as hybrid, liminal figures that neither completely accept nor resist colonial pedagogy. Instead, the adolescent training in native relations reveals the boys' fundamental reliance on the Other.

WHAT WAS THEINDIGÉNAT? THE ‘EMPIRE OF LAW’ IN FRENCH WEST AFRICA

ABSTRACTWhat was theindigénat? This article approaches this question via three arguments. First, a study of theindigénat(the regime of administrative sanctions applied to colonial subjects) challenges the idea that French West Africa formed part of an ‘empire of law’. Second, a dynamic spectrum of political statuses developed around theindigénatuntil its abolition in 1946. This spectrum is no less significant than one of its poles alone, that of colonial citizens. Third, theindigénat, its narrative of reform, and its relationship to law, bureaucracy, and authority illuminate the tensions between imperial rhetoric and colonial governance.

Empire and After: Englishness in Postcolonial Perspective

This is an intellectually rigorous collection of essays investigating the nature of ‘Englishness’ both within and beyond national borders. The geographical and chronological scope of the book is wide, taking in Ireland, South Africa, India, the Middle East, and the United States, as well as England, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Although the focus in several chapters is on literature and literary concepts, the work as a whole is interdisciplinary in its approach, drawing on archival manuscript sources, contemporary interviews, cartography and political rhetoric. The collection offers a useful and timely intervention into analyses of the continuing significance of empire in understanding English/British identity and culture. In their stimulating introduction, ‘Nationalism Beyond the Nation-State’, the editors provide an excellent critique of some of the recent debates on ‘Englishness’ and explore the burgeoning interest in ‘the local and the global’. The remaining nine chapters are divided chronologically into two sections, the first examines English national identity during the imperial era while the second studies the postcolonial period. Enda Duffy's opening piece is the first of two essays on the relationship between Britain and Ireland. Duffy reassesses comparisons in imperial rhetoric between the Irish and Africans, beginning with Kipling's much quoted ‘white chimpanzees’ comment. Duffy suggests that the persistent unease around this remark stems from the fact that attempts to equate Irish and black African subjects were never entirely successful. It is the absence of Ireland and Irish politics in Conrad's The Secret Agent, as elucidated by Graham MacPhee, which brings the first section of the book to a close. Taken together, these essays suggest the complex ways in which Irishness has been significant for constructions of England and Englishness, and vice versa.

Irish Nationalist Opinion and the British Empire in the 1850s and 1860s

Ireland's historical position within the British Empire has become a contentious issue for historians, literary critics and commentators. The debate has generated heated scholarly exchanges, exposing the fault-lines that run through Irish studies. At one end of the spectrum of opinion, Terry Eagleton has argued that ‘there are ... two kinds of invisibility: one which arises from absence, and the other from over-obtrusive presence’. This over-obtrusive presence, for Eagleton, is the colonial relationship between Britain, the colonial power, and Ireland, the colony, a relationship which makes it appropriate to consider Ireland's experiences as similar to non-European colonies. Eagleton implies that so obviously did Ireland comprise a colonized society of this sort that to argue otherwise must reflect a wider agenda. Seamus Deane is less elliptical, relating the dispute directly to the ideologies and mentalites underpinning the way Irish history is written. ‘The rhetoric of [historical] revisionism’, he asserts, ‘obviously derives from the rhetoric of colonialism and imperialism’. Whether this is symptomatic of historians’ unreflexiveness, of their incapacity to develop a consciousness of the discourses within which they write, or whether their innate conservatism renders them collaborators with colonialism, is not entirely clear.

Sylvester Graham's Imperial Dietetics

In ““Bodies Made of Bread”” I theorize eating as an intimate site through which power, in particular, the power that upheld the nineteenth-century United States' investment in imperial rhetoric and action, was both instantiated and undermined. Using the dietetic writings of nineteenth-century reformer and anti-masturbation campaigner Sylvester Graham, I assess the body politics that lurk behind the highly socialized but insistently naturalized act of eating. Eating in Graham's work is a quotidian act through which fictions of racial and gendered embodiment are upheld; through comparison to South Pacific islanders and other European colonists, Graham imagines an ideal American-ness which is founded upon the imperial fantasy of Euro-American indigeneity and regulated through the daily consumption of wheat and other ““farinaceous”” foods.

George Oppen and the Fate of Modernism by Peter Nicholls

MLR, 104.1, 2009 193 book'sawkward structure: partbiography andpartliterary criticism-with thecri tiquesforming byfarthe most interesting partofthetext. Thebiographical chapters drawheavily(asByrneacknowledges) onA. J. Lannguth's Saki: A Life of Hector Hugh Munro (London: Hamilton,1980) andonEthel Munro's sketch ofher latebrother publishedin1924,andadd little tothe picture drawninthese earlier sources. Indeed, inplacesByrne'sattempt tosaysomething new strays uncomfortably intospecula tion:'[a] mong the books that Hectorandhisbrother wouldprobably havebeen sent by their UncleWellesley [. . .]were typical Victorianadventure and "improving," didactictales'(p.42),oragain '[s]ince history wasHector'sfavourite study[..] itis easy to imagine thathe would have likedHenty's Friends thoughDivided, a Tale of the Civil War' (p.42).And sohemight-but itisunclear howsuchsuppositions will improve ourunderstanding ofSaki'swork. More convincing isthediscussion ofthe influence ofLewisCarroll'sAlice stories(which Ethelcitesas herbrother's child hood favourite and Saki satirizedin the Westminster Gazette (1902)) upon Saki's 'boy-beasts' (p.38)Bertie, Reginald, andComus.Likethefictional Alice, 'whoseems heartless toamodern reader'(p.38),Byrneargues, Saki'snarrator/protagonists are often pitiless andvengeful. As later chapters detail,'considerable leeway'isshown by Saki'snarrators towards hisprotagonists 'inthe matter ofeating children, disrupting gardenparties, andplaying nasty practicaljokes';but, Byrneargues, Saki'scharac ters 'arenot immoral [... .] there is a centre, a fixedpoint around which reality and moralityrevolve for Sakicharacters andnarrators: England' (p.9).Byrne'sanalyses demonstrate thatthetropes ofEngland,ofEmpire,and theself-centred cruelty as well as potential bravery of young English men are everywhere in Saki's writing. While his effetenarrator/protagonists dine atKettner's and would rather fretover which waistcoat towear than help a fellow human being, none of themwould back down from a fight. As Byrne notes, inSaki's work amale may be 'languid, flaunthis nice eyelashes [...] and be attractive. Similarly, he can consume flesh, incite a stag to rip apart awoman, or plot a painful death [...] and not be unattractive. He cannot, however, beweak-willed orcowardly' (p.1i). Thisaesthetic isintriguing, andByrne's work reminds us that while much of Saki's fiction isextraordinarily well written, pre cise,clever, itisalsobyturns misogynistic, racist, anti-Semitic, and socoldlyironic as todefy closereading. In 'The UnrestCure',for example, Saki'sprotagonist Clovis playsa 'practical joke'on residents of thetown ofSlowborough byenlisting them in an imaginary scheme to 'tomassacre every Jew in the neighbourhood' (in The Chronicles ofClovis, 19 1 ). Byrne's study, moreover, does not provide a new context for understanding suchbrutality: bytracing Munro'smajorpreoccupations, TheUn bearable Saki may serve only tomake readers question his contemporary relevance. KINGSTON UNIVERSITY MEG JENSEN George Oppen and the Fateof Modernism. ByPETER NICHOLLS.Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress. 2007. Xii+222pp. ?55. ISBN978-o-19-921826-4. Peter Nicholls is the most elegantly eruditeof theexplicators of 'modernism(s)', as his well-known, highly regarded, and widely used book of that title (published 194 Reviews in1995) so eloquently attests. Thiswas itself something ofan exfoliation from an equallyground-breaking book on Ezra Pound (Politics, Economics andWriting: A Study ofEzra Pound's 'Cantos' (London: Macmillan, 1984)), the multi-talented but slightly alarming'caped crusader' ofpoetic modernism whose increasingly intransi gentandoften hectoring tone(s)(thoseof the'egoscriptor') had found, at least mo mentarily, thesenseofan idealreaderinhisDaddy-Colossus Mussolini. With char acteristic deftness, Nicholls makes reference to HermannBroch'sDeath of(a) Virgil (1945),who regrets his imperial rhetoric, andHermannHesse's GlassBead Game (1943), which impugns a sterile abstractly academicexpertise, toregister hisdevel opingsenseofdistancefrom ordistaste fortheexcesses ofpoetic 'high' modernism. He also finds hisown subtly presented secessionsfrom the movement mirroredin theincreasingly highlyregarded workofGeorgeOppen, as a poetwho finds ways toassertand embodya senseofwhathe finely calls 'theirreducibility of thepoem todiscourse'inpoeticforms which register 'asortofresistance toconceptualreso lution'(p.129),despitetheinformal philosophicinfiltrations of thepoetry. A little frighteningly, perhaps,this might initially seem toentaila creative senseof some philosophicthemes running from Hegel to Heidegger('etau-dela',as they say),and to theextent that this is so these are teased out in thisbook with an admirable adroit nessandpertinacity; butclearly pre-eminent herearecertain writings ofHeidegger whichpositively encouragetheideaofapoeticthought, orpoetryas thinking. (Op penmightalsobe seenas something of a poeticexistentialist hauntedby 'spectres ofMarx', even ifhe seems equally clear that 'when we are conceptually clear, the work issuperfluous' (p.129).) Ironically (assomething ofa discipletoPoundaswell as Heidegger) a sense of his Jewishness also pressed on him, and although he had a sophisticated and rather tentativeview ofwhat thismight mean forhim, he was fas cinated by theOld Testament's Book...

Theological Responses in England to the South African War, 1899–1902

This paper discusses theological responses in the Church of England to the South African War (1899–1902) as reflected in sermons by theologians and church leaders and the limited amount of theological writing on the subject during the period. Three points emerge: first is the strong sense in which the mission was to civilise and Christianize. The fact that the war was being fought against a white enemy led to a characterisation of the Boer as uncivilised and primitive. Secondly, the British Empire was not understood simply as a means of promoting the British interest across the world. Instead it was regarded as at least potentially a Christian Empire which embodied higher universal values. The emphasis was on humility and judgement, whereby moral absolutes were relativised by the vision of a more universal goal. This undoubtedly helped lessen the strength of some of the imperialist rhetoric. Finally, the higher values of self-sacrifice created a sense of moral seriousness: the universal values displayed in love for the community were prioritized over those of a narrow patriotism or individualism. Like the early days of the First World War, the Boer War functioned as an “antidote to anomie”. All in all, the strong dose of Platonism injected into Anglicanism in the nineteenth century meant that it functioned as a modest check on unfettered jingoism. A limited degree of prophetic critique – albeit deeply ambiguous, compromised and sometimes racist – remained the dominant theological discourse of Anglicanism, even at the highest point of imperialism.

Le retour du discours impérialiste aux États-Unis

This paper focuses on the current revival of imperialistic discourse in the English-speaking world in general and the United States in particular. Initial commentary focuses on the definition of the words empire and imperialism set within a historical overview of US expansion and imperial interventions, and includes references to anti-imperialism. The re-emergence of an explicit imperialist rhetoric among some groups and leading academics or pundits in the late 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first century is then analyzed in ideological terms. The seemingly paradoxical role reversals between liberals and conservatives are also addressed. The text concludes with an appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of US hegemony.

The First Samurai: Isolationism in Englebert Kaempfer's 1727 History of Japan

It doesn't take a front-page article in New York Times to certify that Japanese culture is currently hip in American mainstream. (1) From sushi to manga, from taiko drumming to latest technological toy, Americans--especially young--embrace all things Japanese. Yet it might be worth pausing to ask not only what Japan represents through a broad spectrum of cultural, artistic, and even gastronomic events, but also how it functions: what is semiotic purpose of Japan as it manifests itself in West? What cultural work within current social practice does Japan perform? How is it currently being deployed? (2) These questions have special relevancy in wake of recently popular film Lost in Translation, where Tokyo featured less as an image of itself, and more as an emblem of spiritual anomie, a place where unlikely hero and heroine explore loneliest reaches of their souls. They seem even more pertinent in case of The Last Samurai, a 2003 film coproduced by Edward Zwick and Tom Cruise, in which America's most famous scientologist becomes a man of integrity and honor by subjecting himself to rigorous and disciplined life of pre-Meiji Japan. Certainly throughout modern Western history, Japan has functioned as place of novelty, as a source for new ideas. But more importantly, it has served to initiate self-investigation: more than many other locations, Japan facilitates Western introspection and self-definition that follows. In a sense, Japan becomes a mythical geography that, by very nature of its strange otherness, creates a space for meditation upon key issues of both personal and national identity. This was as much case in 1727--which saw translation and publication of Englebert Kaempfer's two-volume work, A History of Japan: Giving an Account of Ancient and Present State of Government of that Empire--as it is now. (3) This remarkable work, long recognized among Japanese scholars, now receives additional attention from eighteenth-century scholars, who appreciate it as a significant record of early-modern, intercultural contact: currently, a Web page edited by Wolfgang Michel-Zaitzu of Kyushu University serves as a lively forum in English, German, and Japanese for discussion of all of Kaempfer's work, with History receiving a great deal of attention. (4) Meanwhile recent discussions of English translation of The History of Japan appear in essays by Annette Keogh and Robert Markley. (5) For former, Kaempfer's translated history conceptualizes the increasing importance of vemacular languages amongst nations of Europe, while for latter, same history demonstrates how Japan functioned as a fundamental challenge to rhetoric of European imperialism. Kaempfer's work, originally written in High Dutch at end of seventeenth century, presents itself as an encyclopedic summary of natural wonders of an island nation. Kaempfer--who had previously authored naturalistic work Amoenitaum Exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum (published in 1712 and also called Amoenitales Exotica or Exotic Pleasures)--provides a comprehensive survey of Japanese minerals and metals, fertility of its plants, and plenitude of its animals. He covers as well its reptiles and insects, its fish and shells, and its extraordinary medical practices. Especially notable is Kaempfer's coverage of political state of Japan, including a listing of hereditary emperors; his description of various Japanese religions and religious practices; his account of late seventeenth-century Nagasaki, from its palaces to its brothels; and his narration of annual trip from Nagasaki to Jedo (the old German name for Tokyo), undertaken, as he writes, so that Dutch visitors can pay their duties to appropriate Japanese officials (2:393). The work, as Keogh mentions, is all more remarkable for circumstances under which it was written: arriving in Japan on 25 September 1690, Kaempfer stayed until 31 October 1692. …

The Missionary Narrative as Coercive Interrogation: seduction, confession and self‐presentation in women’s ‘letters home’1

This article takes as its starting point the late nineteenth and early twentieth century missionary discourse of feminine self‐denial, and attempts to chart the ways in which it became a subversive theme in women missionaries’ ‘letters home.’ It argues that in the simultaneously public and private act of letter writing, women missionaries created complex sexual and political self‐narratives. By co‐opting the imperial rhetoric of a threatening, violent East, and then setting up their letters as conversations with an invisible interrogator, missionary women repeatedly forced their audiences to discover the various ways in which they had been seduced by this East, and had thereby deviated from accepted feminine norms. In the process, they both reinforced imperial notions of race and civilization and undermined the likewise imperial notion of protective domestic space.

Империя в себе. О механизмах возвратных процессов в современной российской политике

SUMMARY: Emil’ Pain opens his article with the statement that empire is again at the center of political debates among liberal intellectuals, who see it as an illegitimate corruption of the nation-state. At the same time, American neo-conservatives and Russian neo-traditionalists see empire as a legitimate restoration of the traditional order. Pain reviews the return of Russian imperialism in politics and in public discourse. At the center of his analysis are the Russian state historical legacy, modern political practices, rising ethnic nationalism among the peoples of the Russian Federation, and the imperial rhetoric of Russian nationalists. He insists that special circumstances favor the reemergence of imperial practices, and those circumstances can be characterized as an “imperial syndrome” (a combination of neo-traditionalism and mental mapping structured by the relatively stable geographical, economic, social and cultural factors, characteristic of Russia). The imperial syndrome defines the limits and the mainstream of Russian politics. Empire, therefore, is not a rationally conceived project of the current Russian political regime – it keeps reproducing itself as a side-product of other political projects. The article scrutinizes elements of the Russian “imperial syndrome” and the specific mechanisms of its actualization. Pain predicts the possibility of the short-term restoration of an ethnocratic racist empire in Russia, however he claims that in a longer historical perspective Russia lacks the resources to sustain a stable imperial regime. Theoretically, federalism still remains an alternative.

‘Diversity. America. Leadership. Good over evil.’ Hollywood multiculturalism and American imperialism in Independence Day and Three Kings1

ABSTRACT In the 1990s and 2000s a highly selective idea of multiculturalism became central to the imagining of American national identity in Hollywood cinema, one that was closely related to the political discourses of the nation surrounding the presidential election campaigns. Davies's focus here is on two significant films, Independence Day and Three Kings, which, despite their very different genres, registers and politics, typify the 1990s Hollywood trajectory of articulating what has been called ‘vulgar multiculturalism’ to exceptionalist and even, arguably, imperialist US nationalism. At the centre of both films is a quartet of male figures configured according to quite specific ideas about ethnic and racial difference: for example, in Independence Day Jewishness is associated with intelligence, blackness with verbal ‘smarts’ and physical strength. Through this composite but selective image the United States is portrayed as a site of ethnic and racial diversity, whose unique ability to cohere the qualities conferred by difference enables and legitimates its global military primacy. The latent meanings of Independence Day have been interpolated differently into American political discourse by President Bill Clinton, Senator Bob Dole and President George W. Bush. While Clinton responded explicitly to the film's evocation of a Eurocentric Second World War ideology, the film subsequently provided Bush with a more powerful, globalized legitimation for US power. If Independence Day utilized a highly selective version of multiculturalism in the service of American imperialism, Three Kings offers itself by contrast as an embedded critique of the aims and conduct of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Yet this critique is itself shaped by the contours of an exceptionalist discourse of the American national project, one in which, again, images of racial and ethnic difference play a crucial role. Three Kings decries the economic motivation of a war fought solely to protect oil supplies, while making a strong plea that military intervention should have included helping Iraqi rebels overthrow Saddam Hussein. This plea is made most powerfully in a crucial ‘recognition scene’ in which the central GI protagonists come to realize that Iraqi refugees, whom they have been taught to view as Other, share values and aspirations that are strongly coded as American. As such, Three Kings anticipates the Bush White House's rhetorical manoeuvre whereby the ‘war on terror’ is rendered as the bringing of liberation to oppressed peoples, but the film is also readable as portraying humanistic, cross-national obligations. These ideological tensions are unpacked by reference to a structured discussion of the film that took place in 2003 between students at universities in the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Davies finally argues that the film ultimately contests the rhetoric of imperialism, and seeks instead to open up a space in which the desire to escape from oppression is not immediately coded as a wish to become American.

S. Amanda Eurich. « Secrets of the Seraglio: Harem Politics and the Rhetoric of Imperialism in the Travels of Sir Jean Chardin », in : Glenn J. Ames and Ronald S. Love, eds., Distant Lands and Diverse Cultures: The French Experience in Asia, 1600-1700. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003, pp. 47-70.

This excellent, well-written article argues that, for all his admiration for the lands of the East, and especially Iran, Jean Chardin saw eastern societies as corrupt and craven, debilitated by luxury and sensuality. Focusing on Chardin’s depiction of the Safavid harem as the center of languid lassitude, the author describes how the French Huguenot portrayed a hothouse of intrigue and cruelty, where growth through fertility was curbed through forced abortions and infanticide, thus providing a...

Robert Kagan, un « néo-conservateur » emblématique

This article is an analysis of the new rhetoric of imperialism developed by Robert Kagan and the wrongly named "neo-conservatives" who have shaped the foreign policy of the Bush Administration. Kagan resorts to a gendered view of international relations which idealizes the use of force and reinvigorates the concepts and mental categories of Theodore Roosevelt. Kagan’s dismissal of and scorn for the Europeans critical of the Bush Administration take a pseudo philosophical form but boil down to shopworn biological conceptions. Rather than being typical of American views of Europe, Kagan’s neo-imperialist musings are those of a clearly identified ideological group that now exerts enormous influence over the White House, and are strongly opposed by other Americans.

Ritual and power in imperial Roman rhetoric

This essay analyzes the ways that Augustus's Res Gestae elaborates on the conditions of imperial rhetoric and power. Augustus's text documents the augmentation of the religious foundations of his power through the redefinition of the concept of authority, auctoritas, and through a vigorous effort to blend civic and religious spaces. The implications of these efforts can be appreciated by comparing auctoritas with earlier Republican conceptions of ethos. Such a comparison clarifies how increased control over civil and religious space characteristic of the Imperial period accompanied the shift in Roman imperial rhetoric, best understood as a movement toward more epideictic modes of address.

Unlearning the Legacy of Conquest: Possibilities for Ceremony in the Non-Native Classroom

Historian Patricia Limerick’s book The Legacy of Conquest focuses on the history of the American West within the context of conquest as “the historical bedrock of the whole nation” and the American West as “a preeminent case study in conquest and its consequences.”1 Limerick writes that to “live with that legacy, contemporary Americans ought to be well informed and well warned about the connections between past and present.”2 The experiences, past and contemporary, of indigenous peoples form an integral part of this legacy. In Red Matters, Arnold Krupat asserts that “you just can’t understand America, more specifically, the United States, without coming to terms with the indigenous presence on this continent.”3 Still, in mainstream U.S. consciousness, there is little comprehension of the scope of past genocide or awareness of contemporary Native issues. Krupat writes that “this lack of awareness most immediately and directly hurts Native people,” but clearly “hurts Americans in general.”4 This statement becomes especially meaningful in the contemporary context of post 9/11 realities and the so-called “War on Terror,” constructed rhetorically through the political doctrine of neoconservatism.5 The building blocks supporting the rationale of perpetual warfare against an ideologically defined “evil” is located in traditionally imperialist rhetoric. To become intimate with the history of Native Americans in the evolution of the American nation means to better comprehend the destructive consequences of current imperial rationalizations which insist that the narrow parameters of Western cultural values define a highly complex world In “Lewis and Clark in Afghanistan,” Derq Quiggle traces the line of America’s imperial project from the Lewis and Clark expedition through the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the illegal ouster of President

War games: Richard Harding Davis and the new imperialism

An analysis of the beginnings of American imperial rhetoric; This is a study of the early writings of Richard Harding Davis, the premier American journalist of the 1890s, best remembered for his coverage of the Spanish-American War. The emphasis of the book is on Davis's reporting - including several volumes of travel writing, covering trips to the Near East and South and Central America. Some account is also made of his fiction, most especially Soldiers of Fortune (1897), which critics have seen as a romantic treatment of the imperialist elan. As such, the novel serves as a prolegomenon to the war in Cuba, which Davis covered during its insurrectionist stage. He later accompanied Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders when U.S. forces invaded the island in 1898, an action he had urged and may have in part inspired. John Seelye argues that Davis, rather than supporting the notion of an American empire on the Roman or British plan, advocated what would become U.S. strategy over the next century: a limited engagement in support of embryonic democratic movements in the Caribbean, followed by withdrawal of armed forces once a stable government had been established. While approving British methods when they seemed in accord with his ideas of fairness, Davis was critical of the English presence in Egypt and was scathing in his treatment of the Boer War, championing the Dutch settlers over the invading army. Like many others associated with the Spanish-American War, Davis was an ardent fan of football: fair play and good sportsmanship were integral to his notions of democratic expansionism, hence the title of this book. Seelye not only brings Davis into the mainstream of recent historical treatments of American imperialism, but makes a case that Davis was, as his contemporaries regarded him, a master of journalistic style.