Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a multifaceted historical geography of American empire and colonial life in the Philippines, focusing on the period from 1900 to 1913 when a governing Taft-Forbes regime, aligned closely with the US Republican Party, occupied the upper echelons of government and instituted key elements of these spatial policies. Drawing on and elaborating notions of the production of space associated with the Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre, it traces the production of four kinds of colonial space—territory, map, landscape, and road—that were each geared, in different ways, to make space for American empire in in the Philippines and, some hoped, to help ensure its survival for a few generations at least. The book then narrates the origins of the US occupation of the Philippines from the Spanish-American War to Philippine-American War and concurrent establishment of the Insular Government under the US War Department.