ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews arguments made about American "outreach" in the 1890s. The specific concerns are: the Spanish-American War, 1898-1899, some antecedents, and the settlement that yielded an overseas "empire". The chapter addresses the claims put forth in the "progressive" tradition, the dominant tendency in American history. The brief review of the various "progressive" traditions points up a key problem—a long-standing preference for "declared truths" as opposed to conclusions based on research. The Spanish War brought "imperialism directly into politics as an overshadowing issue" and secured "the frank acknowledgement of the new emphasis on world policy which economic interests demanded". Some segments of the population shared the progressive reading of things, having gained an understanding of the exploitative political and economic processes affecting them. The "progressive" theory offers a variant of the bureaucratic argument, it too assuming that business leaders "know" what they are doing. A serious methodological problem appears in much of the progressive literature diffuse formulations.
