
God's Arbiters
Americans and the Philippines, 1898-1902
Susan K. Harris(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 28. July 2011
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-19-974010-9 (ISBN)
Description
Mark Twain called it "pious hypocrisies." President McKinley called it "civilizing and Christianizing." Both were referring to the U.S. annexation of the Philippines in 1899. Drawing on documents ranging from Noah Webster's 1832 History of the United States through Congressional speeches and newspaper articles, and the anti-imperialist writings of Mark Twain, Harris keenly assesses the attitudes of Americans and the moralistic rhetoric that governed national and international debates over America's global mission at the turn into the twentieth century. She offers a provocative reading both of the debates' religious framework and of the evolution of Christian national identity within the U.S. She also moves outside U.S. geopolitical boundaries, reviewing responses to the Americans' venture into global imperialism among Europeans, Latin Americans, and Filipinos.
Reviews / Votes
In God's Arbiters, Susan K. Harris deftly evokes the potent intermingling of nationalism, war, and culture at the end of the nineteenth century as the United States conquered the Philippines and took the first, halting steps toward empire. * David Silbey, author of A War of Frontier and Empire * Susan Harris has produced a smart, readable, and timely book-timely in its view of the Christian narrative by which the United States undertakes imperialist ventures, and timely in its investigation of the relationship between religion and American foreign policy. * Jean Pfaelzer, author of Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans * God's Arbiters makes an important contribution to ongoing debates over the role of religion in American life. This is a book that clearly resonates with contemporary debates about race, religion, and America's place in the world. * Amy S. Greenberg, author of Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire * Harris's meticulously researched study provides fresh insight into a chapter of the past that has key implications for debates that are as current as the evening news. This well-written and ambitious book is an impressive and welcome contribution to transnational American Studies and to Twain studies. * Shelley Fisher Fishkin, editor of The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Work * An intriguing study of America's rise as an imperial power...Harris, author of two books and many articles on Mark Twain, is in top form. In her able telling, Twain was a man on a mission. He had become a critic of the very ideology to which he had long been captive: the grand narrative of American supremacy and conquest...For a very long time, Americans have resisted recognizing and confronting their imperial impulses and admitting to the massive footprints they've left here and there around the globe. Harris's timely study reveals that these footprints have deep historical and ideological roots. * Christian Century *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paper over boards
With dust jacket
Illustrations
25 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
522 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-974010-9 (9780199740109)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
07/2013
Oxford University Press Inc
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E-Book
06/2011
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€14.49
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E-Book
01/2011
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€17.49
Available for download
Person
Susan K. Harris is Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Kansas. She is the author of The Cultural Work of the Late Nineteenth-Century Hostess: Annie Adams Fields and Mary Gladstone Drew (Palgrave, 2002) and The Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain (Cambridge UP, 1997), among other works.
Author
Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and CultureJoyce and Elizabeth Hall Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture, University of Kansas