After quoting extensively from Isaac Watts’s nationalistic renditions of the Psalms (Psalm 47 is made to say “The British islands are the Lord’s, / There Abraham’s God is known”), Willie James Jennings ( The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race ) . . . . Continue Reading »
Mead gives a nicely varnished picture of British establishment and support of its global maritime order. He doesn’t deny that the British broke some eggs, but he’s more interested in the omelet. C.A. Bayly’s superb The Birth of the Modern World: 1780-1914 (Blackwell History of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Mead gives a concise summary of Anglo-American military successes during the past three centuries: “Since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that established Parliamentary and Protestant rule in Britain, the Anglo-Americans have been on the winning side in every major international conflict. The . . . . Continue Reading »
Mead responds to the notion that civilizations and empires inevitably decline with this: Arguments about inevitable decline, articulated by Spengler and Toynbee, “looked more probable in the early and middle years of the twentieth century than they do today. Consider the idea that all . . . . Continue Reading »
One of Mead’s main themes is that Anglo-American strategy during the past several centuries has focused on the development of maritime order. In this perspective, the world is single, but divided into different theaters: “The theaters are all linked by the sea, and whoever controls the . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 2004 article in Victorian Studies , Bernard Porter challenges today’s “cultural imperialist” assumption that the British empire pervaded Victorian life. Not so, he argues, for several reasons. One was that there was no single Britain: “this idea that there was only one . . . . Continue Reading »
“Although it does not accord with the general sentiments or views of the United States to intermeddle [sic] in the domestic contests of other countries, it cannot be unfair, in the prosecution of a just war, or the accomplishment of a reasonable peace, to turn to their advantage, the enmity . . . . Continue Reading »
When Capt. William Bainbridge’s ship, the George Washington , was seized by the Algerian leader Hussan Dey and forced to carry tribute to the Ottoman rulers in Istabul, his men decided to take their revenge. According to Michael Oren ( Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: . . . . Continue Reading »
“Intervention is not now, never was, and never will be a set policy of the United States.” Herbert Hoover’s claim was cleverly stated: Even dozens of interventions might be defended as ad hoc responses to particular situations rather than part of a “set policy.” Still, . . . . Continue Reading »
“I believe strictly in the Monroe Doctrine, in our Constitution, and in the laws of God,” said Mary Baker Eddy in 1923, a century after Monroe propose his doctrine. It’s an interesting list, in an interesting order. One of the virtues of Jay Sexton’s The Monroe Doctrine: . . . . Continue Reading »
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