Imperlialism 101

Max B. Sawicky sawicky at bellatlantic.net
Mon Aug 23 23:52:58 PDT 1999


Anybody catch the PBS documentary "The Crucible of Empire" on the Spanish-American war?

I thought it was pretty good, for television anyway. No visible marxist historians, but a good multicultural line-up of experts. The stuff on the anti-imperialist league was pretty neat (major stalwarts, the Womens Christian Temperance Union!). The economic motive was laid out pretty clearly, but a variety of other factors were persuasively advanced too. You could take this as good or bad. The most severe criticism from a hard left view would be that the entire enterprise -- American imperialism -- is presented as a something of a momentous accident, not something that was likely in the cards.

Overall I would say it has a constructive message. The abject U.S. betrayal of the Cuban and Phillipine revolutions could not have been made more clear, I think. (In that sense it was more a matter of liberal sympathy towards nationalism.) In the same vein, the profoundly weasel-like nature of U.S. pro-imperialist political and military leaders is pretty vivid.

A friend of mine from w-a-a-y back was a principal in the production, so if there are any comments I could relay them to him, and he might be sufficiently provoked to react.

PBS is selling the thing for $20. If I was teaching I would use it. I don't know if my friend has a piece of that action. I'm sure they will be running it again.

mbs



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