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The New Empire An Interpretation Of American Expansion Summary

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Expansion has played a large part in American history, coming with a collection of problems and triumphs. Walter LaFeber discusses American Expansionism through U.S. policymaking even discussing how and why he believes it should be more conservative as he claims this to be the backbone of all of his writings.1 Also it’s important to define how he uses the term expansionism as he states “I have used the term expansionism in discussing American attempts to find trade and investment opportunities in areas where the United States did not want to exert formal political control”.2 The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860-1898 by Walter LaFeber, examined the period of 1860-1898 of the “American overseas empire” by addressing the …show more content…

LaFeber claims, “an open door policy eliminated colonial problems, and American factories and farms boomed so successfully that the resulting glut of goods threatened to inundate the economy” leaving Seward’s successors able to complete much of what he was unable to finish.7 LaFeber makes it clear his trust remains with Seward and his approach to expansionism provided tribute to his claim expansionism was not sudden in 1890 and Seward was fully aware of the political choices he was …show more content…

Evarts, and he begins with a perspective reflecting that of an American businessman referring to the perspective that a commercial empire could be acquired without war. From this perspective, Evarts placed heavy emphasis on Asian policies establishing some freedom of action and commercial privileges. Blaine and Frelinghuysen were similar to all of their fellow policymakers in their search for new trade opportunities. They devoted much of their time to finding “Latin-American markets for American goods”, and foreign markets were extremely important in LaFeber’s analysis of a new empire.10 Together they took hold of new trading opportunities and created a successful policy with Latin-America bringing forth a new attitude in relation to the U.S.’s southern neighbors. All of these policymakers from LaFeber contribute to his claim that expansion was an ongoing ordeal and was not a random act in the 1890’s. These policymakers were clear in their goals and set out to achieve nothing less through policy in attempts to find trade and investment opportunities creating a new American Empire through economic

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Toward the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the United States was becoming an increasingly powerful nation and world power. The country was competing with other nations also expanding. Their motives for expanding were to gain land and resources. While there was a slight departure from past expansionism, the United States mostly continued as it had been in the previous years. In order to accomplish expansionism, the United States needed to acquire foreign territories to increase their global presence.

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159 Words | 1 Pages

The United States was not interested in having people with different cultures, languages, and religions where an older generation of moralists thought it violate a core principle of republicanism, while a younger generation believed that the United States had a role to uplift backward societies. When the foreign policy changed after 1890, the US became an imperialist nation. After the United States bought Alaska from Russia the US quickly decided to look into overseas. Their plan was to take over other foreign lands and slowly gain an empire, and soon become a world power. The two major causes for US expansion after 1890 were for economic benefits and military control overseas.

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1292 Words | 6 Pages

We notice that in the expansion to the west coast there was conflict whilst trying to obtain simple objectives driven by the motive of Manifest Destiny. This book shows the simple facts of the ideas of wanting to achieve something can lead to more aggressive outcomes which leads to a bigger effect on future events and

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1671 Words | 7 Pages

A vast majority of the history of the United States was marked by an age of expansionism. This era was particularly pronounced throughout the 19th century; such events may include the acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and the annexation of Hawaii and purchase of Alaska, all of which are the hallmarks of U.S expansionism. The main motives were of a multitude and varied, but there is one particularly strong motivation in this conquest. The acquisition of economic opportunities was a common belief among many of the people of the U.S. and among its leaders. This idea fueled and garnered this idea of expansionism and directed the course of history in its conquest.

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1155 Words | 5 Pages

It was the time when Manifest Destiny concept, an idea in special role and destiny of the United States, was highly popular. The concept that consequently justified the expansionism and nationalism. Therefore, Polk’s expansionist impulse, though strong and quite successful, was a product of dominant thoughts that were circulating among Americans.

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Howard Zinn’s unique perspective on American history and the beloved American heroes makes for an interesting story. His book, A People's History of the United States, paints history in a whole new light. While most teachers tell the story of the huge period of depression and under consumption, the side that Zinn shows in the 12th chapter of his book “The Empire and the People”, tells of the differing views of American imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He also uses other like-minded historians like Mahan, Lodge, Beveridge, Lafeber, Sage, and Foner and historical events such as the Spanish-Cuban-American War, the Teller Amendment, the Monroe Doctrine, and the sinking of the Maine battleship to support his claims. These claims

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1007 Words | 5 Pages

When America, as we know it today, was created, it had just freed itself from an unwanted, suffocating European power. The people wanted nothing to do with foreign affairs and their presidents’ policies reflected that. As America moved forward and established themselves as a world power, they began to want more. At the turn of the twentieth century, this want for more hit its peak and because of other circumstances, more was just within reach. America had always prided themselves in staying out of foreign problems and focusing inward, but now a new age was dawning.

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1. When did the “Aroostook War” occur & what was its cause? An explosive controversy of the early 1840s involved the Maine boundary dispute. The St. Lawrence River is icebound several months of the year, as the British, remembering the War of 1812, well knew.

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After the Civil War, the second Industrial Revolution swept the US and the country began to flourish. Baring the economic prosperity, many Americans grew the urge to expand overseas. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, foreign policy was the hot topic among citizens and government officials. There were two sides to the argument; some Americans pushed for the aggressive foreign policy while others favored for the US to keep their nose out of foreign affairs. Notable figures in government took bold stands for and against foreign affairs.

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William McKinley in his thoughts on American Expansionism has identified the reasons why America had no other choice but to incorporate Philippines as a part of it. This writing has been lifted from the excerpts of an interview with William McKinley soon after Spain had surrendered in the Spanish-American war. McKinley cleverly talks in this interview about how Philippines just came and fell into the laps of America thereby suggesting the helpless stance of America. He talks about how America’s sole intention and purpose had only been to safeguard its own interests as a country. He had to order that the Spanish fleets in Manila be destroyed because if left unattended, they would have crossed the Pacific and wreaked havoc in the American states

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The United States became first place in the world in farm output and and in number of factories. For example, the number of American export tripled wile American direct investments increased as well. Generally, new businesses and economic interest motivated expansionism within the United States. However, the book also states that politics, joined profits, patriotism, and piety played a huge role in expansionism. What do you think the biggest role in expansionism in the 1890's was?

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What are the Traits of a Good Friend? Two traits I think are important in a good friend are loyalty and understanding. A character in The Outsiders that showed loyalty is Dally.

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Following the end of the Industrialist Era and the emergence of countless technological advancements, the United States entered the world stage. The United States was attempting to create an empire by expanding to land outside of its own borders in order to benefit the country’s economic interests. Many citizens, whose views were greatly influenced by their understandings of national identity, saw this overseas expansion in conflicting ways. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these groups differed in their opinions on the idea of expansion due to either their wanting to remain a democratic country built on the ideals of freedom and liberty to preserve their sense of national identity, or their wanting to expand for economic reasons and nationalism. Imperialism, which is the extension of a country’s power and influence through expansion, began as early as the 17th century, when Britain colonized the New World in order to expand economically and gain natural resources for manufacturing.

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Economically the U.S. had made advances in technology and began to get oversea territories. Culturally they had used the

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How did the United States expand over the years and why? The expansion of the United States was a vital part of America’s history and greatly affects how we live today. America's early days only started in 13 states and then progressively grew to 50 states in total. The time throughout the 1800’s and what happened throughout that time greatly impacted how America expanded land, resources, opportunity, trade, and money. Two of many main causes that evoked American expansion was the amount of opportunity that America could take, the idea of Manifest destiny, and the amount of power that the US had on other countries.

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