Transcript INR 4204 • This slide presentation is available on the course’s web page.

INR 4204
• This slide presentation is available on the course’s
web page. Relax.
• Today’s agenda:
– Distribute quiz info sheet. Questions?
– Wrapping-up Zakaria’s From Wealth to Power.
Zakaria, cont’d
• Z. associates himself with “classical
realism:” “Nations will expand their
political interests abroad when their relative
power increases” (19).
“America’s Ascent” (p. 45)
• After the Civil War, “U.S. economic growth
reache[ed] a truly stunning pace. . . . ” (45)
• America’s “meteoric rise was even more
staggering in relative terms.” By the mid1880s, the US surpassed Britain in
manufacturing output. (46)
The Industrialization of America
in the Aftermath of the Civil War
(The “Gilded Age”)
Andrew Carnegie, 1835-1919
• Entered business
during the civil war
• Became the greatest
steel baron of the era
and America’s richest
man.
• Was actually a
“peacenik”
John D. Rockefeller, 1839-1937
• Oil was found in
Pennsylvania in 1859
• R. Bought his first
refinery in 1863
• Built the Standard Oil
trust—the world’s
leading oil empire
(mentioned on p. 100)
Leland Stanford (1824 - 1893)
A Railroad Baron
• “With the help of the
government, between
1865 and 1875
[railroad] trackage
more than doubled to
over seventy-four
thousand miles” (p.
104).
Zakaria, cont’d
• Classical realism’s “great weakness: history
furnishes many examples of rising states that did
not correspondingly extend their political interests
overseas” (p. 32).
• The U.S. from 1865 to the early 1890s is such an
example. U.S. policy in those years was
characterized by “imperial under-stretch”—
minimal colonial expansion (see maps on pp. 6-7),
a very small navy, a “tiny” Dept. of State, minimal
participation in diplomatic conferences (p. 47)
William Seward (1801-1872)
• Secretary of State 18611869 (under Lincoln and
Johnson)
• Believed that “Abroad our
empire shall no limits
know” (p. 44)
• Purchased “Seward’s
Icebox” in 1867
• His other expansionist
schemes were “foiled”
(pp. 57-67)
Pres. Ulysses Grant (L) and Sec. of State
Hamilton Fish (term: 1869-1877)
• Expansion “thwarted again” (pp. 67-75)
Resolving the puzzle of imperial
understretch
• To redress the “weakness” of classical realism, Z.
tweaks it into “State Centered Realism:”
“statesmen will expand the nation’s political
interests abroad when they perceive a relative
increase in STATE power, not national power”
(38).
• SCR “uses both levels of analysis”—systemic and
state-level (p. 188)
• Z: U.S. was becoming a rich NATION, but its
state apparatus was still weak.
Zakaria, cont’d
• See chapter 4 on the rise of the American
state: “Between the late 1870s and the late
1890s, America’s political structure
changed dramatically as two key institutions
gained strength: the federal government and
the presidency” (p. 92).
Woodrow Wilson (1856 -1924)
• Wrote Congressional
Government, 1885
(see p. 90)
• Later recanted the
book’s thesis (90)
• Authored “The Study
of Administration”
(1887)
Prophets of Expansion
Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840 - 1914)—naval
historian and strategist
• See Zakaria, p. 134
• Influenced Teddy
Roosevelt
Historian Frederick Jackson Turner (18611932)
• Authored “The
Significance of the
Frontier in American
History” (1893)
• Thesis implied that
“new lands had to be
found to save
American freedom”
(Zakaria, p. 135)
Practitioners of Expansion
President William McKinley (1843-1901)
“The first modern chief executive” (LaFeber, 196)
• Went to war against
Spain (1898). Resulted
in the occupation of
Cuba; annexation of
the Philippines, Puerto
Rico, Hawaii, Guam
(see maps on p. 7)
• Declared “open door”
policy in China. Sent
5,000 troops there in
1900 (161-64).
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919):
An “unabashed expansionist” (p. 164)
• Led the “rough riders”
• Built Panama Canal
and “midwived”
Panama (165-68)
• Proclaimed “Roosevelt
Corollary” (p. 170)
• Intervened in Santo
Domingo (170-71)
• Arbitrated RussoJapanese dispute (172)
Discussion question (if time permits):
• Z. ends the book on an
optimistic note (19092). Is it warranted,
especially with regard
to the rise of China?
• Photo: Shanghai’s skyline
Google in Beijing
Beijing’s second ring road