ABSTRACT

Efforts of outreach by rich capitalist nations have been depicted as important developments in the late nineteenth century. These efforts, called “imperialism” for short, were the source of much international contention and also of much subsequent discussion. The influential work of Charles and Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization, provides the basics of this, the progressive view of the nation’s history. America’s achievement of “world power” status resulted, allegedly, from the territories acquired in 1898 and 1899: Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam and the Wake islands in the Pacific, and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Businessmen, most especially the leading figures, are regularly portrayed as “knowledgeable,” and “hard-headed”, as rational, calculating decision-makers. Railroad-building efforts in China were undertaken during the Taft and Wilson presidencies, one by a group involving the Morgan bank.