|
|
|
Reviews
| Race, Nation, and Empire in American History. Edited by James T. Campbell, Matthew Pratt Guterl, and Robert G. Lee. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. vii + 383 pp. Table, notes, and index. $65.00 (cloth); $22.50 (paper).
|
|
The specter of the ongoing Iraq War hangs over this important collection of historical essays. The editors argue against those in the media who suggest that the war has been a departure from anti-imperialist policy by noting that "the United States is and has long been a robustly global nation, whose politics, economy, and culture have both shaped and been shaped by developments in the wider world ... these two seemingly contradictory processes, of boundary crossing and boundary making, are and have always been intertwined" (p. 7). The essays touch upon centuries of U.S. engagement with the world, which has resulted in, among other things, immigration from Europe, Asia, and Latin America and by enslaved Africans and their descendants, American Indians, and others with whom the United States came in contact through processes of annexation, colonization, imperial foreign policy, and "Americanization." What differentiates this from other edited historical volumes is its insistence on keeping one eye on the past and one on the present; thus, in lieu of a concluding chapter, the editors have closed the volume with three essays concerning contemporary times. |
1
|
|
The collection is broken into five parts, each with three essays. Part I, "Who's Who: American Encounters with Race," includes cogent reconsiderations of anthropologist Franz Boas by Vernon J. Williams, Jr. and of Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen by George Hutchinson. Joanne Pope Melish's essay stands out for its discussion of how Rhode Island's Narragansett Indians were—after decades of mixing with African Americans—subsumed into a rigid black-white binary beginning in the early nineteenth century. Having over time lost their status as "Indians," Narragansetts who sought public recognition as such in the twentieth century met with skepticism from the white majority and confusion from the black minority. Melish ends with a fascinating and sensitive account of a recent political tug-of-war regarding the racial designation for a Newport monument dedicated to a black-Narragansett regiment from the American Revolution. |
. . . |
There are about 669 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
