1. American Historical Review
Conference by Dr. I. Ankikwicz.
I. American isolationism
Isolationism refers to United States’ longstanding unwillingness to become
involved in European alliances and wars. Isolationists held the view that United
States’ perspective on the world was different from that of European societies
and that the USA could advance the cause of freedom and democracy by
means other than war.
-Thomas Jefferson complain
The United States terminated its alliance with France, after which the U.S.'s
third president, Thomas Jefferson, admonished in his inaugural address,
"peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances
with none." Jefferson preferred the United States "to practice neither commerce
nor navigation, but to stand, with respect to Europe, precisely on the footing of
China," clearly recognized after he had become president the necessity of
development commerce and other forms of international intercourse”
-The USA is the least important and respected of all nations with embassies in
Paris
-Manifest Destiny and territorial growth of the USA
The United States, after the Civil War, was really flourishing; it was a period of
tremendous economic growth. Most of the people who were in the powerby that
time believed that this was the time for the U.S. to expand itself overseas,it is
important to say that not all of them approve this idea, since for many business
men it was cheaper to buy products, etc.; instead of declaring war to most
countries.
Most of the territories they were interested in were Spanish colonies, for
instance the first settlers of Texas were the Spanish missionaries and most of
these territories became U.S. possessions. For example, the territory of Texas
was part of the Spanish Empire for more than a century, so for more than a
2. decade Texas was a Republic but it had to change its status and adapt to a
very different domain. Then it happen mostly the same with the other colonies.
-Mexico later
II. Monroe´s Doctrine 1823
America in 19th Century: At that time the U.S. became independent and it was
no longer interested on the European Countries, but on its own progress and
economic development.
-New spirit on the 1980s
European claim by Britain, France and Germany
U.S. positions Senator Orville 1893
“A policy of isolation did well enough when we were an embargo nation, but
today things are different”
-Cuba and other Spanish possessions
The idea of waging a war against Spain starts over Cuba. Spain ruled Cuba,
and there were Americans who felt that Spain should be expelled. In 1895 there
was a continuity of several rebellions against Spanish rule in Cuba as a part of
a war of Independence declared by the Cubans since 1868.
-American newspaper propaganda William Randolph Hearst and Joseph
Pulitzer
On 1898 the warship Maine was split in two by an enemy´s infernal machine
USA and Spain at War (Cuba and Philippines)
In the case of Cuba they convinced them that it was time that they were finally
an independent nation free from the Spanish domination and that they were the
best option to accomplish the final end of a very prolonged war.
One hundred years ago, the United States was actively involved in the
decidedly less splendid struggle to subdue the movement for independence in
the Philippines. The Philippines as many other territories become a strategic
3. and economic cause to the United States. All these countries were going to
become a market for USA´s manufactured products. In the thirties the
Philippines became independent, but with strings attached. The notion of
special economic ties with the United States still kept it very dependent on the
U.S.
-Annexation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Hawaii (1898), Panama (1904), and
control over Cuba (since the Cuban’s sense of been independent was not to be
annexed to another empire)
III. Excuse for the American Empire
Surely the Spanish War has not been a grab for empire, but a heroic effort to
free the oppressed and teach millions of ignorant, debased human beings.
The U.S. intervene in Latin America whenever it thought necessary since it had
economic and political control over most Latin American countries at that time.
-Follow-up American soldiers in Nicaragua, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, etc.
IV. War World I
-Woodrow Wilson impartial in thought and in action
Wilson as president of the USA led the country during the hard years of WWI
and as a part of his personality of great intellect and respectable statesman
when it was the beginning of this war in 1914, Wilson proclaimed that the
country should remain neutral with the effort to avoid war, even though the
states also participated and became a close allied of Great Britain.
-May 1915 British passenger ship Lusitania.
The British liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine with a loss of
almost 1,200 lives including 124 Americans.
-Zimmermann´s telegram,March 1917
-April 1917 American Congress declares war to Germany
4. -Wilson Fourteen points Speech is the US Senate.
-America tried to stay away from war conflicts.
-Idea of nation, of organization.
V. War World II
Great Depression (Black Thursday, 24 November, 1929 and terrifying Tuesday,
29 November, 1929)
These three dates denoted the starting points of the collapsed in the economy
and the stock market; that subsequently initiated one of the most terrible epochs
of depression in the USA history.
Terror in the world in the 30s
Voice of isolation in America (Neutrality Acts of 1930s passed by Congress)
The idea of isolationism was due to that most Americans did not want to
participate in another war as in Europe was moving into another war and this
time the Americans considered that there were more internal problems due to
the depression and did not want to get involved and focused on domestic
problems.
-Suspension of Neutrality Acts per retime conscription in US, military supplies
for Britain, Lend Pan
-December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor
-Conferences Teheran Nov, 1943
-Febrary, Yalta 1945
-Potsdam,July, 1945
VI. TheColdWar
Many have seen the Cold war as a continuity of the preiviuos war since it
included several conflicts mainly between the Comunist nations mainly led by
the Soviet Union and the democratic nations led by the United States since
5. there was many different political and ideological ideas between these two
nations. In this war countries like Spain remain neutral.
-Iron Curtain
-A Bomb and H-Bomb
-Thurman’s doctrine of containment
-Marshall Plan 1947
-1950 53 Korea
-Airlift Berlin 1948
-Nato 1945, U.S. military potential
-Dulles brink manship policy
-Cuba 1961/62
-Space Race Russian Sputnik(1957) and Gagarin 1961 vs. U.S. landing on the
Moon 1969
-Vietnam War
-Détente
-1989/90 the end on the Cold WAR
VII. Post-Cold War America
-U.S. Economic Power
The Cold War was in many ways a continuation of the battles of World War II.
The discourse of a world sharply divided into opposing camps, one representing
freedom and the other slavery, was reinvigorated in the worldwide struggle
against Communism.
