The True Flag

Starred review from November 7, 2016
Acclaimed journalist Kinzer (The Brothers) spotlights the domestic discord and clamor over America’s imperial ventures at the dawn of the 20th century. After a century of continental expansion, the U.S. encountered the opportunity to expand overseas by capturing Spanish colonial possessions and other territories and peoples within its reach. The nation plunged into arguably “the farthest-reaching debate” in its history with political and intellectual giants contesting “the imperial idea” to determine America’s place in the world and in history. Expansionists proclaimed benevolent intent and a civilizing mission while touting the economic benefits of conquest; anti-imperialists recalled America’s anticolonial origins and condemned imperialist violence and brutality. The former largely triumphed, as the U.S. soon controlled Cuba and annexed Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and the Philippines in a swift series of subjugations. In Kinzer’s gripping narrative, the egotistical Theodore Roosevelt emerges in his aggressively hypermasculine fashion as the most outspoken expansionist, while Mark Twain embarks on the “least-known phase of his career” to resist the violent drive toward empire. Kinzer ably conveys the passion and ferment of this brief period, situating this grand debate in the context of U.S. foreign policy history and convincingly arguing that the imperial/anti-imperial dichotomy remains a dominant feature of the American psyche.

Starred review from November 1, 2016
A timely work on the vociferous sides taken over the Spanish-American War of 1898--and how that history relates to the ongoing debate regarding American imperialism.In this engaging, well-focused history, Kinzer (The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World, 2013, etc.), a former New York Times bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua and Boston Globe Latin America correspondent, plunges into the heated conversations in Washington and the tabloids over American expansionist designs on Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam at the turn of the 19th century. During a "ravenous fifty-five day spasm" in the summer of 1898, the United States "asserted control" over these far-flung nations--totaling 11 million people--by handily defeating the Spanish fleet and thus acquiring rather suddenly an overseas empire. Was this even constitutional, and had not founder George Washington himself warned against "the mischiefs of foreign intrigue"? Using the excerpts of speeches and editorials, Kinzer skillfully extracts an immediate sense of the heated debate that gripped the country, centering around the jingoist triumvirate of Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, the consummate Washington insider; Theodore Roosevelt, who became Assistant Secretary of the Navy and then vice president; and the powerful publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, proprietor of the New York Journal. While the first two gave powerful, persuasive speeches on the need to extend "national authority over alien communities" and offer the U.S. urgent new markets, Hearst acted as the "mighty megaphone" for the imperialist message, especially when the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor gave the casus belli to attack Spain. Rather late in the game, Mark Twain, who was traveling abroad and saw firsthand President William McKinley's racist American policy of "benevolent assimilation," emerged as an effective advocate for anti-imperialism, as did Andrew Carnegie and (conflictedly) William Jennings Bryan. In the last chapter, Kinzer astutely brings the debate from the turn of the century to the present. A tremendously elucidating book that should be required reading for civics courses.

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October 15, 2016
Despite Kinzer's scholarly approach, this book is about nothing more than the standard conflict between American interventionism and isolationism (anti-imperialism) going back to, and hardly going beyond, the Spanish-American War. The prolific author of The Brothers, about the Dulleses, has selected TR and his nemesis Twain to personify one dimension of this conflict, but not really. Though Teddy Roosevelt is portrayed, at length and scathingly, as a warmonger, Twain, though he periodically enters the picture, is a far lesser character here. The hero, really, is immigrant Carl Schurz, and the imposing cast of characters includes Andrew Carnegie, William Jennings Bryan (who is portrayed almost as critically as Roosevelt), Henry Cabot Lodge, and newspaperman William Randolph Hearst (the war's primary instigator), and President William McKinley. The True Flag is well written and adequate history, just not quite what it suggests it is.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2016

Veteran foreign correspondent and best-selling author Kinzer (Overthrow) dates the American urge to intervene to the early 20th century, when Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Randolph Hearst argued that imperial expansion would benefit America, while Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, and Andrew Carnegie argued against it.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2016

Does the U.S. flag represent liberty or conquest? Kinzer (The Brothers) recounts how Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt justified overseas expansion, engineered the Spanish American War, and finagled U.S. domination of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Without ignoring U.S. continental expansion, he argues that this momentous shift in U.S. foreign policy initiated the rancorous, ever-relevant debate over America's role in world affairs. Anti-imperialists, including William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and Samuel Gompers, argued that imperialism contradicted America's mission to defend liberty, warning that the nation's lust for power, territory, markets, and resources signaled the downfall of the republic itself. Kinzer's final chapter briefly covers the roller coaster of U.S. intervention and retreat from Roosevelt's presidency to the present and points out the acrimonious consequences--abroad and at home--of promoting American interests without fully analyzing diverse positions. He also discusses the legacy of the anti-imperialists, and suggests that there's still time to alter our approach to "solving" global problems. VERDICT This straightforward treatment of America's struggle to define its international posture is essential for readers at all levels as we continue this debate and wonder, "Why don't they like us?" [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/16.]--Margaret Kappanadze, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2016

Does the U.S. flag represent liberty or conquest? Kinzer (The Brothers) recounts how Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt justified overseas expansion, engineered the Spanish American War, and finagled U.S. domination of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. Without ignoring U.S. continental expansion, he argues that this momentous shift in U.S. foreign policy initiated the rancorous, ever-relevant debate over America's role in world affairs. Anti-imperialists, including William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and Samuel Gompers, argued that imperialism contradicted America's mission to defend liberty, warning that the nation's lust for power, territory, markets, and resources signaled the downfall of the republic itself. Kinzer's final chapter briefly covers the roller coaster of U.S. intervention and retreat from Roosevelt's presidency to the present and points out the acrimonious consequences--abroad and at home--of promoting American interests without fully analyzing diverse positions. He also discusses the legacy of the anti-imperialists, and suggests that there's still time to alter our approach to "solving" global problems. VERDICT This straightforward treatment of America's struggle to define its international posture is essential for readers at all levels as we continue this debate and wonder, "Why don't they like us?" [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/16.]--Margaret Kappanadze, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.