Imperialism

U.S. imperialism developed and peaked during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the nation attempted to expand overseas and control the political and economic systems of lesser developed nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean. American activities in the Philippines, which came into the possession of the United States after the Spanish-American War of 1898, embodied the assumptions underlying this expansion. Among the factors driving American imperialism was a new gender dynamic that surfaced in the years after the Civil War. Overseas expansion and the acquisition of colonial territories provided opportunities for young men to prove their masculinity and affirm the male virtues of bravery, loyalty, and endurance. At the same time, expansionists believed that the new possessions in Asia, the Pacific, and ...