Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917

"At its core 'civilization' was an economic concept" (p. 50). So shows Jacobson, in his wonderful book, _Barbarian Virtues_.Vile racial hatreds define these hegemonic notions of "civilization." Jacobson's extensive research shows persistent and everyday racism operating in the daily discourse of American power. Presidents McKinley and (Teddy) Roosevelt, as well as major newspapers and magazines, spew a stream of racism, and show it as a basic part of elite common sense at the time.I want to second the reviewer from Durham, who found this book short on Blackness. (Jacobson's excellent _Whiteness of a Different Color_ helps somewhat.) One might add that this book only skims over the important experience of the violent conquest of the West and the Indians, in shaping "civilization" and "savage" during these years. (Drinnon's _Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire Building is a larger and longer contribution in this regard.)The book could be faulted for lingering on the Tarzan novels, for example, when more pressing political issues ruled the day. And I was hungry for a more sustained discussion of the colonization of the Philippines.But Jacobson is in pursuit of "civilized" ideas in everyday American thought--that's his safari here and, as such, he pursues his subject with great talent. _Barbarian Virtues_ is a fast and gripping read. And it exposes what school textbooks and the mass media forget so well: America has a long and viscious history of racial hatred. When our politicians today speak of "civilization," we ought to remember its deep, poisonous roots, and its longstanding use to justify the most brutal exertions of capitalist greed.

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In Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917, Mathew Frye Jacobson explored the American perception of ourselves and the foreign peoples we came into contact with at the turn of the last century, as empire building and immigration expanded our interaction with the outside world. The title comes from a quotation by Theodore Roosevelt calling on Americans to not abandon their hearty roots in the quest for civilization, and to “keep the barbarian virtues” in order to escape from decadence.Anxiety over civilization and barbarity characterized American culture at the end of the nineteenth century. According to Jacobson, political culture during this period was “characterized by a paradoxical combination of supreme confidence in U.S. superiority and righteousness, with an anxiety driven by fierce parochialism.” The paradox stemmed from the United States’ economic dependence on an influx of labor from peoples that were considered to be inferior. Popular media characterized these people as barbarian others in need of the fatherly hand of the civilized United States. The labor and resources of the “barbarians” were invaluable in propelling this country to a position of power.It is not the uniqueness of this relationship and mentality during the period that Jacobson finds interesting. As he points out, these attitudes have long roots in American culture. The scale of these endeavors is what sets this period off from the past. Industrial production, mass population movements, expanding and active government, and a developing mass media characterized this time of explosive growth and involvement in the world. But in order to facilitate such involvement, the old attitude Americans had taken toward American Indians and, to a lesser extent, Mexicans, needed to be refashioned for use overseas. The people of Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Panama all had to be seen as “pawns in a vast geopolitical game,” as Jacobson describes it. This shift in perspective took a conscious cultural effort to accomplish.According to Jacobson, the worldwide search for markets drove American colonialism. “A whole range of forces… could unsettle people from their homelands,” he argued, “but the labor market and the laws of supply and demand dictated where they were likely to go.” This search for a marketplace, in turn, drove industrial demand for more and more labor, as new customers were found at home and abroad. This labor came in the form of immigration from diverse cultures, many of which were radically different from the Anglo-American culture that had been so dominant in the United States. Americans openly wondered if these new peoples could be assimilated, or whether they would ever be fit for self-government. This created an anxiety regarding our national identity, especially since the Civil War had raged only a few decades before.Unfortunately, Jacobson never gives a voice to the “barbarians.” In a book about national character and identity, it seems unusual to not include the perspective of the immigrants themselves. After all, the immigrants of the 1870s became the Americans of the 1910s. The book portrays them and the overseas peoples as mere pawns (to use his term), subject to economic and cultural forces. Likewise, Jacobson focuses on and criticizes domestic images of foreigners, but he does not present an alternative view to show why those perspectives were incorrect.With a knack for clear and concise explanation, Barbarian Virtues contributes to our understanding of the national character of the United States at the turn of the last century, but it takes a condescending and political tone. Jacobson does not shy away from promoting a social and political agenda. As he warns in his introduction, “it behooves us to ponder the continuities between [Teddy] Roosevelt’s day and our own,” because he fears that “the civilities of public discourse” might only be a veneer over the same kind of sinister perspectives and activities he thoroughly condemned. In other words, American society has always had this sickness, and Jacobson is the enlightened doctor who has diagnosed the problem.The originality of Jacobson’s argument is undeniable, and Barbarian Virtues contains vivid descriptions and analysis drawn from a large volume of primary sources. The words of the principal actors in his narrative jump off of the page, and their motivations, hopes, and desires become clear. As to how Americans saw their place in the world, Jacobson provides a vivid tapestry. Overall, Barbarian Virtues is a worthwhile but intentionally provocative study of the dynamics of empire, economics, and immigration, and the national mentality that accompanies a young county in transition onto the world stage.

I'm proud to be an American. Over the last month and a half, these six words have echoed through our radios and televisions more times than the latest Brittney Spear's sexy single. Stores are selling out of stars and stripes and CNN's ratings have gone through the roof. The United States was attacked and its' people can do nothing but wave the flag and propagate blame on foreign people. American citizens have been taught to recognize their culture, their government, and their people as the epitome of what an advanced society can achieve. The ethnocentrism found in America overwhelms its' people and creates the drive to dominate what they perceive to be foreign. The attempt towards domination has been a societal precedent since the beginning of time. As America industrialized around the beginning of the 19th century, the U.S. fought this battle for power with imperialistic vision, expanding global markets and immigration labor. Their power was achieved through the profits of capitalism, at the expense of global human equality. The strength of the U.S. is rarely questioned by its' citizens. The American people try to ignore the selfish actions that U.S. government and businesses have used to gain and maintain themselves as the world's super power. It's hard to find material that looks deeply into this matter, searching for truth under layers of patriotic dust. Matthew Frye Jacobson disregards the notion of America's rightful warrant of power and exposes the truth that lays beneath the blanket of American ideals in his book Barbarian Virtues: The United States encounters foreign peoples at home and abroad 1876-1917. Jacobson recognizes this time period as an important era of the establishment of American foreign policy and the domestic thoughts surrounding these events. America's intense industrialization during these years created the need to open the doors of commerce to people around the world, and to open our domestic doors with invitations of immigration. The opportunity for immigrant advancement and the betterment of foreign societies because of U.S. involvement, are the notions that have been written down as facts in American children's history books. The story that Jacobson tells holds harsh truths that have been conveniently overlooked in the writing, or rewriting, of American history. He explores "foreign peoples as imported workers for American factories and as overseas consumers of American products" (4) and recognizes the illiberal nature of American actions. America was forced to turn to foreign participation in their industrialized world of commerce because "this "nation of customers" did not have the spending power to support its shopkeepers"(16). The shift towards foreign markets and workers created a "deep American dependence upon these foreign peoples (which)seems to have fueled the animus against them"(13).Foreigners were met with fear when they got off the boats and were manipulated in their own homelands to support the American economy. Their cultures were thought of as inferior and barbaric in comparison to the society of the United States. Immigrants would be bettered as they adapted to the American way of life and foreigners would be aided in their advancement towards civilization by having American goods available. Exporters reduced the history and cultures of foreign peoples to "a series of wants whose particulars were as easily discerned by the Western eye as they were fulfilled by the Western industry" (26). The government slyly "aided" counties in ways that would establish markets for American goods. All actions were motivated by profit; human exploitation was a common cost and of little concern. Americans convinced themselves that these foreign people were inferior as a mechanism to avoid the guilt that would ensue from their actions in these lands. The inferiority of foreign cultures "provided justification for whatever action or intervention the United States deemed necessary to exert its will outside its own borders"(49). The United States not only used foreigners as explanations for their ill actions in world activity, they used them to explain the economic state of people within the U.S. American economists of the time made claims to "immigration intensifying the fatal cycle of "booms" and "depressions"" and declared it the responsible factor for the lowering "standard of living for all American workers" (74). Foreign workers and their homeland markets were completely being taken advantage of, while the American need for them was being ignored. Jacobson recognizes the extreme hypocrisy with which America dealt with foreigners and acknowledges the mistakes that were made and the lasting impact that these mistakes hold. The exploration of the "white man" developed ways in which the people of the U.S. thought about other parts of the world."Entire continents were defined by their presumed emptiness, cultures by their lacks and absences, and peoples by their exemption from the flow of history". The Other, found in these barren spaces, was often sexualized and given an "erotic charge". The "feminized natives" were depicted as naturally and eagerly awaiting the "masculine West's" possession (112). Juxtaposing the idea of a feminine nature against a masculine culture further demonstrates the American tendency to look at these foreign people as uncivilized and barbaric. These erotic images of "otherness" were not too deeply developed by Jacobson and background knowledge of orientalism (Edward Said) would help to further digest these ideas. I am impressed with Matthew Frye Jacobson's attempt to look past the instilled idea of American History to recognize America's place in world history. Americans must be informed of the past; they must be proud of the accomplishments and made aware of the mistakes. During the years between 1876 and 1917, America's intentions were to "reform a population to suit U.S. needs" (38). They did this in the name of world advancement, but the results were no doubt profitable to the United States and harmful to many foreign people. There is no doubt that both accomplishments and mistakes were made during this era and after reflecting upon Jacobson's revisions to Americas place in history, it's a bit harder to say I'm proud to be an American.