Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917

by Matthew Frye Jacobson

Book Overview

How a new American identity was forged by immigration and expansion a century ago.

In Barbarian Virtues, Matthew Frye Jacobson offers a keenly argued and persuasive history of the close relationship between immigration and America's newly expansionist ambitions at the turn of the twentieth century. Jacobson draws upon political documents, novels, travelogues, academic treatises, and art as he recasts American political life. In so...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809016281
• ISBN13: 9780809016280
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Bridging Immigration and Expansion

According to Matthew Frye Jacobson, the United States first debut its power on the world stage at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and first confirmed that power during World War I (Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues 4, 15-16, 56, 59, and 119). The years in between (the subject of this book 1876 to 1917) was an epoch of dramatic change. Jacobson writes that the dynamics of industrialization accelerated the rate at which Americans encountering foreign peoples, both here and abroad (Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues 261-265). By bridging immigration and expansion, (Jacobson argues so often left separate), his intervention is the reformulation of American political life. In so doing, Jacobson looks at "American conceptions of peoplehood, citizenship, and national identity" (Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues 4). Jacobson illustrates how these years are the foundation for today's sense of immigrants and foreign policy. In Barbarian Virtues, Jacobson articulates how America's perception/notions of peoplehood, citizenship, and national identity were formulated in these crucial years. Jacobson argue that these years were marked by the intensification of economic and military involvement abroad coupled with (or juxtaposed with) the massive influx of immigrants at home (Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues 93-95). Jacobson's archive is vast. He uses a range of sources -- not only conventional political documents but engages in culture (in much that same way, I argue, that Edward Said uses culture in Culture and Imperialism) novels, travelogues, academic treatises, and art (Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues 105-116, 130-138, and 162). Jacobson show the close ties between immigration and expansionism.

Gets it right

As an historian who teaches about the Progressive Era, i've been waiting for a book like this for years. It's simply the best book written on America's peculiar fascination with race and the obsession with defining a hierarchy of races in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There has certainly been enough attention paid to Spencer et al and the progression of thought on how intellectuals confronted the problem of race in the late 19th century, but no book has ever treated the subject with such acumen. Jacobson joins David Roediger as the preeminent writers on America's struggle to reconcile it's claim to being the world's melting pot with the reality of it's ongoing propensity to relegate "savages" and lesser races/ethnicities to the margins of society.

Fascinating and well-written--required reading for Americans

"At its core 'civilization' was an economic concept" (p. 50). So shows Jacobson, in his wonderful book, _Barbarian Virtues_. Vile racial hatreds define these hegemonic notions of "civilization." Jacobson's extensive research shows persistent and everyday racism operating in the daily discourse of American power. Presidents McKinley and (Teddy) Roosevelt, as well as major newspapers and magazines, spew a stream of racism, and show it as a basic part of elite common sense at the time. I want to second the reviewer from Durham, who found this book short on Blackness. (Jacobson's excellent _Whiteness of a Different Color_ helps somewhat.) One might add that this book only skims over the important experience of the violent conquest of the West and the Indians, in shaping "civilization" and "savage" during these years. (Drinnon's _Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire Building is a larger and longer contribution in this regard.) The book could be faulted for lingering on the Tarzan novels, for example, when more pressing political issues ruled the day. And I was hungry for a more sustained discussion of the colonization of the Philippines. But Jacobson is in pursuit of "civilized" ideas in everyday American thought--that's his safari here and, as such, he pursues his subject with great talent. _Barbarian Virtues_ is a fast and gripping read. And it exposes what school textbooks and the mass media forget so well: America has a long and viscious history of racial hatred. When our politicians today speak of "civilization," we ought to remember its deep, poisonous roots, and its longstanding use to justify the most brutal exertions of capitalist greed.

Barbarian Virtues

I'm proud to be an American. Over the last month and a half, these six words have echoed through our radios and televisions more times than the latest Brittney Spear's sexy single. Stores are selling out of stars and stripes and CNN's ratings have gone through the roof. The United States was attacked and its' people can do nothing but wave the flag and propagate blame on foreign people. American citizens have been taught to recognize their culture, their government, and their people as the epitome of what an advanced society can achieve. The ethnocentrism found in America overwhelms its' people and creates the drive to dominate what they perceive to be foreign. The attempt towards domination has been a societal precedent since the beginning of time. As America industrialized around the beginning of the 19th century, the U.S. fought this battle for power with imperialistic vision, expanding global markets and immigration labor. Their power was achieved through the profits of capitalism, at the expense of global human equality. The strength of the U.S. is rarely questioned by its' citizens. The American people try to ignore the selfish actions that U.S. government and businesses have used to gain and maintain themselves as the world's super power. It's hard to find material that looks deeply into this matter, searching for truth under layers of patriotic dust. Matthew Frye Jacobson disregards the notion of America's rightful warrant of power and exposes the truth that lays beneath the blanket of American ideals in his book Barbarian Virtues: The United States encounters foreign peoples at home and abroad 1876-1917. Jacobson recognizes this time period as an important era of the establishment of American foreign policy and the domestic thoughts surrounding these events. America's intense industrialization during these years created the need to open the doors of commerce to people around the world, and to open our domestic doors with invitations of immigration. The opportunity for immigrant advancement and the betterment of foreign societies because of U.S. involvement, are the notions that have been written down as facts in American children's history books. The story that Jacobson tells holds harsh truths that have been conveniently overlooked in the writing, or rewriting, of American history. He explores "foreign peoples as imported workers for American factories and as overseas consumers of American products" (4) and recognizes the illiberal nature of American actions. America was forced to turn to foreign participation in their industrialized world of commerce because "this "nation of customers" did not have the spending power to support its shopkeepers"(16). The shift towards foreign markets and workers created a "deep American dependence upon these foreign peoples (which)seems to have fueled the animus against them"(13).Foreigners were met with fear when they got off the boats and were manipulated in their own homelan

Extraordinary

This is an extraordinary book. It traces the intersecting lines ofthe American imperial drive for markets during this period, with thepush for immigration as a source of cheap labor. Interwoven with bothpolicies was an unremitting ethnocentrism and racism. This bookexplains the relationship between these factors, and how they helpedshaped American nationalism and consciousness during the period. Onecan also recognize the roots of recent American history in thisearlier period.... The book is brimming with startling andthought-provoking information. Even one familiar with this period ofAmerican history will find much that is new. The quotations in thebook are worth the price alone: almost every page contains a quotationto make the jaw drop! This book is exceptionally well written, andextremely fascinating. It's one of the rare books that had megrabbing my friends and urging them to read it!