Abstract
This article argues that the American empire cannot be fully understood without reference to the ways in which American imperial identities have been associated with the historical experience of England/Britain. To make this argument, the article considers four discourses of identity in particular – Anglo-Protestantism (religion), Anglo-Saxonism (ethnicity/race), Anglo-Saxon capitalism (institutions) and English (language). US imperial development was conditioned by many forces, but none match the aggregate power of America's ‘Anglo-ness’. Although it is too early to assess the ways in which these discourses are negotiated, critiqued and reproduced in the ‘age of Obama’, the American empire is likely to continue to protect and project Anglo-ness vis-à-vis to the rest of the world.
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Notes
Predictably, this literature has been characterized by a definitional anarchy, but perhaps modal is a ‘broad’, ‘post-territorial’ and ‘informal’ view of empire as an international hierarchy in which political authority sits at the center against some consenting periphery (Howe, 2002; Cox, 2005; Hunt, 2007; Berger, 2009; MacDonald, 2009; Nexon and Wright, 2007 and Porter, 2006).
Ferguson (2004, p. 301); MacDonald (2009, p. 48) and Hunt (2007, p. 40–41).
For Andrew Roberts, America and Britain are thus eminently comparable to the republic and empire of ancient Rome (Roberts, 2006, p. 1). Also see Mead (2007) and Phillips (1999).
The Economist (2009b); cf. Klein (2010). The ‘age of Obama’ comes from Gwen Ifill (2009).
Especially relevant are discussions in Belich (2009, pp. 58–65) and Wierzbicka (2006, pp. 5, 299–301).
See, inter alia, Burk (2007), Belich (2009) and Olwell and Tully (2006, part 3). Importantly, this point was made by scores of ‘foreign’ observers at the time of the revolution such as Hector de Crevecoeur, Frederick the Great, Bernardo de Gálvez, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, Francisco de Miranda, Comte de Rochambeau, Francis Vigo and, later, Alexis de Tocqueville.
See, inter alia, Colley (1992) and Maltby (1971). This positioning arguably persists to this day, continuing in and through various ‘Euroskeptic’ discourses in Britain.
See, inter alia, Tocqueville (2000 [1840]), Longley (2002), Noll (2002), Lambert (2003), Mead (2007, pp. 310–317), Jacoby (2008) and Lieven (2005, pp. 32–36). For a philosophical consideration of the compatibility of Christianity and modern secular politics, including liberal democracy, see Gray (2008).
Among 55 delegates who participated in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, more than four fifths identified as Episcopalian/Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregationalist or Methodist (Lambert, 2003, pp. 246–252). Protestantism indeed evolved: Puritanism (and Presbyterianism) in early-modern colonial America split into the so-called dissenting churches, moving from Baptism and Methodism in the nineteenth century to Evangelism in the twentieth. On the role of Protestantism in English (and Scottish) early-modern colonialism, see Stevens (1993). Native Americans also had a place in this reading, as one of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel – a belief still held by some Mormons (Goldman, 2004, pp. 15–23).
The last anecdote may be apocryphal for there is no written record of it, but Hebrew was indeed central to the curricula in America's 10 ‘original’ colleges (Goldman, 2004, p. 29). Note that Franklin and John Adams, and later Theodore Roosevelt, were in favour of linguistic uniformity based on English. Also note that Aramaic, the other language of the Bible, never gained popularity in the Anglo-Atlantic.
One can, of course, still maintain that the United States empire differs from the rest because of its unique ability to combine a sense of exceptionalism with unprecedented hard and soft power (Porter, 2006) or because of the presence of novel ‘situational factors’ like globalization, the proliferation of nation-states or the very informal and sector-specific character of America's imperial relations (Nexon and Wright, 2007).
On the latter, see Fallows (2009). Notably, Obama also embraced exceptionalism in his Nobel Peace Prize speech on 10 December 2009.
That redundant acronym ‘WASP’ came much later (cca. 1950s). For historical reasons, WASP is now the preferred term in US public discourse, whereas elsewhere in the world, including Britain, Anglo-Saxon remains very much in the vernacular.
If one Anglo identity arose in opposition to the European others on the religious dimension, then putatively internal relationships with the ‘Celtic fringe’ produced another Anglo identity on the racial/ethnic dimensions, starting in the sixteenth century (Hechter, 1999). Anglo-Saxonist discourse varied over time in the readiness of claim Celts as others, as demonstrated in the case of Scots and even Irish Catholics (Jacobson, 1998).
See Hackett Fischer (1989), Kirk (1993). Compare with Jordan (1968) and, especially, Hartz (1955).
Although the idea of overseas evangelisation can be historically found in most Protestant societies, the magnitude and frequency of cooperation among English-speaking missionaries and their governments dwarfed that between comparable social groups (Kramer, 2006; Sharkey, 2008).
Huntington (2004). Compare with López (2005) and Laitin (2008). A corollary to liberal multiculturalism is immigrationism, a discourse that holds that immigration is inevitable and always positive (Taguieff, 2006).
Friedman (2009, p. 342), cf. Holinger (2008), Roediger (2008, pp. 212–230) and Wingfield and Feagin (2010).
The 2010 census will give us further data and spurn further debate on whether contemporary Latinos and Chicanos are becoming White, like it was the case with the Irish, Jews, Italians and other ‘ethnics’ or ‘dark Whites’ in the past, thus perpetuating and entrenching America's long-standing White dominance (cf. Jacobson, 2006).
See, inter alia, de Grazia (2005) and Hunt (2007, especially, pp. 85–89).
See, especially, Gamble (1996), but also Cronin (2000), Bourdieu (2001), Giddens, ed. (2001). For an influential statement on the models of capitalism, see Albert (1991).
The Anglo stamp on the global economy is even deeper historically: in much of the period between 1717 and 1971 either the British pound sterling or the US dollar (sometimes both) served as the international equivalent of gold. The flaws are typically explained away by history, as in the claims that Anglo-Saxon capitalism had been sabotaged by its own hubris before, yet it survived and self-corrected (as if ‘self-healing powers’ are an inherent feature of the model).
In terms of objectivist measures, of course, American capitalists are no less aided by their government than capitalists elsewhere, whether through Washington's management of tariffs for industry, minimal protections for labour, or through relatively lenient bankruptcy regimes. As Mead correctly notes, what matters more is the ‘cult of the invisible hand’, not the lack of statist economic policies (Mead, 2007, p. 298).
The ‘market empire’ comes from de Grazia (2005). Compare with LaFeber (1998 [1963]) and Williams (1972 [1959]).
See Crystal (2006, pp. 424–425, 2008); Graddol (2006, p. 14) and Holborrow (1999, pp. 54–60).
See Ives (2006) and Phillipson (1992, 2008). Compare with Hamel (2005), Crystal (2008) and Kayman, 2004).
See the findings of François Grin, as discussed in Phillipson (2008). Also see De Swaan (2001), Grin (2001) and Van Parijs (2004).
How, when, why and to what extent this phenomenon occurs is a matter of much theoretical and empirical debate and controversy (Lucy, 1997; Gentner and Goldwin-Meadow, eds. 2003).
See, inter alia, Holborrow (2006), Lin and Luke (2006) and Ryan (2006). For an argument that Englishes spoken in Asia and Africa are capable of expressing indigenous values without succumbing to the hierarchies implicit in the Huboldtean circles, see Kachru et al (2006). What this school of thought emphasizes is linguistic transmission, not imperialism.
Constitutionally speaking, the United States does not have an official language; the so-called English Language Amendment has been before Congress since 1981, but the measure is yet to come to a vote, even in committee. Language issues are regarded in terms of education policy at the state level or as civil rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
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Vucetic, S. What is so American about the American empire?. Int Polit 48, 251–270 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2011.14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2011.14