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Book Reviews
Exploring the Origins of the Modern American Empire
| SILBEY, DAVID J. A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902. New York: Hill and Wang, 2007. xvi + 254 pp. Introduction, illustrations, further reading, index. $26 (cloth), ISBN 10-0809071878.SPARROW, BARTHOLOMEW H. The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire. Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 2006. xii + 300 pp. Introduction, bibliographical essay, index. $35 (cloth), ISBN 10-0700614814; $15 (paper), ISBN 10-0700614826.
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As the United States maintains more than seven-hundred military bases abroad and wages a war in Iraq to safeguard ideological, economic, and strategic interests (if not dominance) in the Middle East, the origins of the American empire have ongoing relevance. These two books examining the acquisition and governance of the insular empire at the turn of the twentieth century are quite timely. |
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In A War for Frontier and Empire, David J. Silbey has written a brisk, accessible, and informative overview of the war that led to the annexation of the Philippines, the most controversial portion of the new island empire. Drawing on a broad range of American and Philippine secondary sources and printed U.S. documents, Silbey employs the term "war" reluctantly and precisely. He emphasizes that the Philippine-American War actually included three distinct conflicts—the first, in which Filipino fighters had virtually defeated the Spanish before U.S. intervention in May 1898, the second in which the U.S. military decisively vanquished the Philippine Army of Liberation (AOL) between February and November 1899, and the third in which the United States effectively suppressed the Filipino guerrillas by July 1902. The Philippine-American War, Silbey stresses, must be examined on its own complex terms rather than as an instructive precursor to the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. |
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Silbey's explanations for the war's outcomes generally follow the established historiography. Having destroyed the Spanish fleet, the U.S. military and the AOL led by Emilio Aguinaldo easily dispatched the outnumbered, outgunned, and dispirited Spanish defenders of Manila. Thereafter, the far better-equipped, better-trained, and better-organized American forces overcame the Philippine AOL. Aguinaldo's shortcomings as a political and military leader and the AOL's lack of national cohesion contributed to the Filipino defeat. Silbey argues persuasively that the Philippine culture of "client-patron" relationships trumped a more general national loyalty (74). These relationships prompted many Filipino soldiers to fight until they had fulfilled perceived obligations to their patrons rather than to a larger national cause. |
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American military leaders correctly recognized, Silbey asserts, that aggressive frontal assaults on Filipino defensive positions repeatedly yielded victories. The success of such tactics in the archipelago offered a marked contrast to the lesson many U.S. officers had learned the hard way decades earlier in the American Civil War. In analyzing the third phase of the conflict, Silbey maintains that the United States waged a highly effective anti-guerrilla campaign. Here again, localism and the inability to coordinate their efforts from bases on scattered islands handicapped the Filipino insurgents. More important, the United States combined positive overtures to the general population, the establishment of a functional civilian government, and the daring capture of Aguinaldo with a ruthless scorched-earth policy in especially recalcitrant provinces. |
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