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was also the proximate cause of American entry into World War II. Not until 1959, however, did it become one of the United States.
In Hawaii there was an important, American-backed annexationist movement; the Philippines, by contrast, were acquired largely due to the accident of the Spanish-American War of 1898, when Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey sailed south from Hong Kong and defeated the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay. American troops initially cooperated with the Filipino insurgents who had for some time rebelled against Spanish rule; within a few months, however, Congress, after fierce debate, decided to keep the islands, the beginning of the most significant formal colonial episode in United States history. American involvement in the Philippines would illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of the American approach to international affairs. The Filipino insurrection, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, was brutally suppressed by Arthur MacArthur (father of Douglas), yet American rule was in many respects benign; indeed, the supposed American overlords were frequently manipulated by members of the Filipino elite for their own political ends. Even so, American possession of the Philippines fostered an unhealthy sense of dependency among Filipinos, still not entirely dissipated today, while overextending the United States strategically. As Theodore Roosevelt had foreseen more than thirty years earlier, in World War II the islands would prove indefensible, a military hostage and the United States' "Achilles' heel".
Although Dudden fails to cite recent works by Ralph Eldin Minger on William Howard Taft's and Jack C. Lane on Leonard Wood's gubernatorial efforts in the Philippines, the early sections of the book are thorough and well-researched. Regrettably, the standards slip in his chapters on American relations with China and Japan in the decades before Pearl Harbour. Here, indeed, his determination to deal with each country in turn is a defect, since by World War I, if not before, United States policies towards China, Japan, and the Philippines were closely inter-related. The resulting repetition leads to a somewhat confused narrative. Dudden's grasp of the financial dealings between the United States government and private American bankers and China and Japan is shaky; the American Group of the Second China Consortium had not collapsed by the end of World War I, but was about to be established. His understanding of the complexities of interwar American State Department and governmental
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was also the proximate cause of American entry into World War II. Not until 1959, however, did it become one of the United States.
In Hawaii there was an important, American-backed annexationist movement; the Philippines, by contrast, were acquired largely due to the accident of the Spanish-American War of 1898, when Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey sailed south from Hong Kong and defeated the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay. American troops initially cooperated with the Filipino insurgents who had for some time rebelled against Spanish rule; within a few months, however, Congress, after fierce debate, decided to keep the islands, the beginning of the most significant formal colonial episode in United States history. American involvement in the Philippines would illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of the American approach to international affairs. The Filipino insurrection, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, was brutally suppressed by Arthur MacArthur (father of Douglas), yet American rule was in many respects benign; indeed, the supposed American overlords were frequently manipulated by members of the Filipino elite for their own political ends. Even so, American possession of the Philippines fostered an unhealthy sense of dependency among Filipinos, still not entirely dissipated today, while overextending the United States strategically. As Theodore Roosevelt had foreseen more than thirty years earlier, in World War II the islands would prove indefensible, a military hostage and the United States' "Achilles' heel".
Although Dudden fails to cite recent works by Ralph Eldin Minger on William Howard Taft's and Jack C. Lane on Leonard Wood's gubernatorial efforts in the Philippines, the early sections of the book are thorough and well-researched. Regrettably, the standards slip in his chapters on American relations with China and Japan in the decades before Pearl Harbour. Here, indeed, his determination to deal with each country in turn is a defect, since by World War I, if not before, United States policies towards China, Japan, and the Philippines were closely inter-related. The resulting repetition leads to a somewhat confused narrative. Dudden's grasp of the financial dealings between the United States government and private American bankers and China and Japan is shaky; the American Group of the Second China Consortium had not collapsed by the end of World War I, but was about to be established. His understanding of the complexities of interwar American State Department and governmental
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