Unraveling of the American empire: A series of military debacles point toward a tragic end The U.S. retreat from Afghanistan is only the latest in a long list of defeats. Revolution had been brewing in the Philippines long before the Spanish-American War. Search for: ... Others framed American imperialism in the Philippines as nothing new, as simply the extension of a never-ending westward American expansion. “Visualizing American Empire works the visual archive of Orientalism’s ‘the Philippines’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. United States Colonial Rule in the Philippines. It has been more than a century since the American conquest and subsequent annexation of the Philippines. The United States exercised formal colonial rule over the Philippines, its largest overseas colony, between 1899 and 1946. American economic and strategic interests in Asia and the Pacific were increasing in the late 1890s in the wake of an industrial depression and in the face of global, interimperial competition. In an earlier essay, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” published in the North American Review in February 1901, Twain made his points by pretending to convince the “person sitting in darkness” that the benefits of empire outweigh any unseemly American actions in the Philippines: American Empire. As the U.S. had coaling stations in Samoa and a naval base in Hawaii, the Philippines would add to the new American empire’s defense in the Pacific. After just four months of fighting, over 23,000 American military personnel were killed or captured, while embedded Filipino soldiers killed or captured totaled over 100,000. The U.S. military, after a period of trial and error, waged an effective counterinsurgency campaign that was aided by sympathetic natives. Any lingering prospects that the Philippines might be the jumping off point for a new American Empire were put to rest by stiff Filipino resistance in the jungles, swamps and mountains of the islands. Some saw imperialism as a way to reenergize the nation by asserting national authority and power around the globe. It was simply destiny. In 1896, Filipino nationalists, largely organized by the militant Katipunan group, waged an armed rebellion against Spain. The Philippines waged a fiery, but ultimately unsuccessful, war against American imperialists. American Empire and the Politics of Meaning is an examination of how these efforts to provide the elite of Puerto Rico and the Philippines a practical education in self-government played out on the ground in the early years of American colonial rule, from 1898 until 1912. American Empire and the Politics of Meaning is an examination of how these efforts to provide the elite of Puerto Rico and the Philippines a practical education in self-government played out on the ground in the early years of American colonial rule, from 1898 until 1912. If the U.S. had a great navy like Britain, it would be protected from invasion and could use places like the Philippines for strategic operations during war. Although the nation was given its independence in 1946, American cultural authority remains. The conquest of the Philippines by Japan is the worst major military defeat in United States history. American Empire and the Politics of Meaning is an examination of how these efforts to provide the elite of Puerto Rico and the Philippines a practical education in self-government played out on the ground in the early years of American colonial rule, from 1898 until 1912. 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