Product Description

Cultures of United States Imperialism represents a major paradigm shift that will remap the field of American Studies. Pointing to a glaring blind spot in the basic premises of the study of American culture, leading critics and theorists in cultural studies, history, anthropology, and literature reveal the "denial of empire" at the heart of American Studies. Challenging traditional definitions and periodizations of imperialism, this volume shows how international relations reciprocally shape a dominant imperial culture at home and how imperial relations are enacted and contested within the United States.
Drawing on a broad range of interpretive practices, these essays range across American history, from European representations of the New World to the mass media spectacle of the Persian Gulf War. The volume breaks down the boundary between the study of foreign relations and American culture to examine imperialism as an internal process of cultural appropriation and as an external struggle over international power. The contributors explore how the politics of continental and international expansion, conquest, and resistance have shaped the history of American culture just as much as the cultures of those it has dominated. By uncovering the dialectical relationship between American cultures and international relations, this collection demonstrates the necessity of analyzing imperialism as a political or economic process inseparable from the social relations and cultural representations of gender, race, ethnicity, and class at home.

Contributors. Lynda Boose, Mary Yoko Brannen, Bill Brown, William Cain, Eric Cheyfitz, Vicente Diaz, Frederick Errington, Kevin Gaines, Deborah Gewertz, Donna Haraway, Susan Jeffords, Myra Jehlen, Amy Kaplan, Eric Lott, Walter Benn Michaels, Donald E. Pease, Vicente Rafael, Michael Rogin, José David Saldívar, Richard Slotkin, Doris Sommer, Gauri Viswanathan, Priscilla Wald, Kenneth Warren, Christopher P. Wilson

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #460980 in Books
• Published on: 1994-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 672 pages

Review
"In this extraordinary collection of essays on imperialist discourse and practice in the U.S., editors Kaplan and Pease bring together some of the most provocative, pathbreaking work being done in American literary and cultural studies today." --Michelle Burnham, American Studies " ... the collection will prove useful in an American studies context for the variety of perspectives and disciplines which it admits." --History

Review
“In this extraordinary new collection of essays on imperialist discourse and practice in the U.S., editors Kaplan and Pease bring together some of the most provocative, pathbreaking work being done in American literary and cultural studies today. The volume significantly reformulates the terrain of the field by questioning the dominant paradigms of exceptionalism and nationalism which for so long have defined the study of American literature and culture. . . . Together these essays cover immense historical and geographical terrain, employ a wide range of critical methodologies, investigate an impressive spectrum of cultural materials, and practice interdisciplinary cultural studies at its best.”
--Michelle Burnham, American Studies

“[T]he collection will prove useful in an American studies context for the variety of perspectives and disciplines which it admits.”
--Mark Ellis, The Americas

From the Back Cover
"This collection is well positioned to intervene in the most important scholarly debates of our time."—George Lipsitz, University of California, San Diego

Customer Reviews

Foundational essays for a new school of thought
The only other reviewer (to date) has made a fair point about the density of the essays collected here and the relative obscurity of some of the subject matter. But he/she has missed the larger point of this whole volume by dwelling on the perceived shortcomings of a single article. Until recently, scholars of American Studies, literature, and history have largely ignored the role of imperialism in the development of American culture. Since the early 1990s, some scholars have attempted to set this right by paying more attention to issues like immigration, race and gender identity, travel, and American empire (Philippines, Cuba, Panama, etc.).

This collection of essays brings together some of the finest scholars who have worked in this area during the past decade: Amy Kaplan, Donald Pease, Walter Benn Michaels, John Carlos Rowe, Kenneth Warren, and many more. Their work is certainly of the academic variety, and it can be frustrating to readers who are searching for clear-cut, black-or-white arguments. But as a self-described democracy with a protracted history of slavery, institutionalized racism and sexism, and shady imperialist ventures, U.S. culture defies simple, straightforward answers. The writers of these essays understand this difficulty and theorize accordingly. Anyone seeking to understand a fairly recent but very significant development in American Studies, history and literature would be highly advised to puruse this volume. It will continue to play a major role in each of those disciplines for at least the next decade.

Still, I acknowledge the other reviewer's frustration and want to point out this is definitely NOT light reading. And some of the essays are far more intellectually rigorous than others. However, if you start with Kaplan's excellent introduction, you should get a sense of what the collective goal of these scholars is, and you can get a handle on what each of them writes -- even if a particular essay isn't very stimulating.

Top Rate American Studies and Cultural History
This book contains a huge cache of interesting and thought provoking articles by some of the best scholars out there. I agree with the first two reviewers, this is hard work. But its the kind of hard work that is actually refreshing and even energizing, in a way. There are different types of writing, these different types produce different reading experiences. The style predominant in this book is meant to slow the reader down, to present an interpretation that should be reflected on and critically engaged. The writers herein, I would say, should be credited with analyzing difficult topics in the history of American imperialism in ways that are still enjoyably readable. My personal favorites are:

Myra Jehlen, "Why Did the Europeans Cross the Ocean?"
Richard Slotkin, "Buffalo Bill's 'Wild West' and the Mythologization of American Empire"
Amy Kaplan, "Black and Blue on San Juan Hill"
Donna Haraway, "Teddy Bear Patriarchy"
Eric Lott, "White Like Me"

It's Great, If You Like That Sort of Thing.
This is, as one can guess by the title, an academic book. Obviously it is; it is difficult to say, even after reading it, what exactly it means. Does it refer to "cultures" created by U.S. Imperialism? Or perhaps to "cultures" created within the U.S. by imperialism? The predictable answer would be "both," an answer that seems to be given by the structure of the book itself, which not only includes essays on the impact of U.S. imperialism on other nations but also essays on the impact of imperialism "on-shore," so to speak. One such essay is by a professor named Bill Brown, who writes on, apparently, the relationship between the Panama Canal and artificial limbs in "The Prosthetics of Empire." This, to a non-academic, might sound surprising, but it is if anything rather banal these days. But what is really interesting about Brown's essay is that, while he seems to be well-within the crypto-Marxian, post-everything critical theory mish-mash of what passes for academic thought these days, he has actually, in a somewhat weird way, entirely transcended those boundaries. How, you might ask? Well, the answer seems to be that Brown has taken the bold step of not merely just making assertions, as critical theory types are wont to do, but he has even dispensed with that old-fashioned technique of the bourgeois class, and written an essay that does not just merely gesticulate at argumentation but has left argumentation behind entirely. What I mean is, Brown doesn't just say that there is a connection between artificial limbs and the Panama Canal and be done with it; instead he just proceeds as if there was a connection. This, you might say, is a stunning achievement, and one has to praise not just Brown, but also his editors for their courage in publishing it. Of course, not all of the essays in this volume are this "edgy," but don't be surprised next year when you find used bookstores awash with it. By then, of course, the work of Brown and his compatriots will have been denounced as just another victims of cooptation by the "hegemonic state."