The manly ideal of politics and the jingoist desire for war -- Cuba and the restoration of American chivalry -- "Honor comes first": the congressional debate over war -- McKinley's backbone: the coercive power of gender in political debate -- The Spanish-American War and the martial ideal of citizenship -- The problem of male degeneracy and the allure of the Philippines -- The national manhood metaphor and the fight over the fathers in the Philippine debate -- Imperial degeneracy: the dissolution of the imperialist impulse -- Conclusion: Engendering war
Summary
This book blends international relations and gender history to provide a new understanding of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars. Kristin L. Hoganson shows how gendered ideas about citizenship and political leadership influenced jingoist political leaders' desire to wage these conflicts, and she traces how they manipulated ideas about gender to embroil the nation in war. She argues that racial beliefs were only part of the cultural framework that undergirded U.S. martial policies at the turn of the century. Gender beliefs, often working in tandem with racial beliefs, affected the rise and fall of the nation's imperialist impulse
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-296) and index
