| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 90.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The New World Power: American Foreign Policy, 1898–1917. By Robert E. Hannigan. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. xiv, 365 pp. $49.95, ISBN 0-8122-3666-1.)

Robert E. Hannigan's meaty new book begins with an analysis of some crucial aspects of the self-image and world image of the fin-de-siècle American elite. Mainly old-stock males, they regarded themselves as possessing to a unique degree strength of character, self-mastery, virility, and related virtues. They feared and distrusted lower-class Americans, especially immigrants, and above all the "immature" peoples of all the globe's preindustrial societies, for their presumed emotionalism, lack of self-restraint, and weaker, more "feminine" traits. Directing an emergent world power, this elite sought stability and order in Latin America and East Asia in order to check the "greed" of European rivals and the "irresponsibility" of the regions' populations. Where the United States was dominant, they favored those local elements most apt to accept the elite's ground rules: the propertied classes, military leaders, "progressive" strong men. Where Americans were unable to dominate, as in China, they pushed for collective arrangements that could preserve United States interests with a minimum exercise in power.

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