“The Moral Miasma of the Tropics”: American Imperialism and the Failed Annexation of the Dominican Republic, 1869-1871
Historians of American foreign relations have rarely paid attention to conceptual contestability in accounting for political disputes over territorial expansion; often, concepts and ideologies are treated as mere self-interested rhetoric. This essay examines an episode in the history of 19th century...
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| Formato: | article |
| Lenguaje: | EN FR PT |
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Centre de Recherches sur les Mondes Américains
2011
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| Acceso en línea: | https://doaj.org/article/a1b5f87040cc44ec9b06ba75e0601f53 |
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| Sumario: | Historians of American foreign relations have rarely paid attention to conceptual contestability in accounting for political disputes over territorial expansion; often, concepts and ideologies are treated as mere self-interested rhetoric. This essay examines an episode in the history of 19th century American imperial history from the perspective of an intellectual history keenly aware of meaning and intention. It argues that the political conflict surrounding the ratification of the Santo Domingo Annexation Treaty was defined by two contending conceptions regarding the influence that climate had on human morals. While some politicians argued that the tropics degenerated the Anglo-Saxon race, others dismissed this idea entirely. Moreover, the manifest concern with how territorial expansion affected the inner workings of the republic, suggests that this episode must be understood as part of the long republican tradition of the West. Lastly, although this paper primarily focuses on conceptual contestability, by combining some of the methodological insights of Reinhart Koselleck, Quentin Skinner and J.G.A Pocock, it also proposes a way of reconciling the history of economic structures with the contextual history of political thought. |
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