As a result of an unanticipated outcome of the Spanish-American War of 1898 and arrival of the United States as a world power, the United States had the task of "civilizing" the Moros of the southern Philippine Islands. This book chronicles the nation's first experience in occupying, ruling, and attempting to transform a traditional Islamic society and place it on an uncertain path towards democracy.

Most Americans familiar with General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing know him as the commander of American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during the latter days of World War I. But Pershing was in his late fifties by then. Pershing’s military career began in 1886, with his graduation from West Point and his first assignments in the American West as a horsebound cavalry officer during the final days of Apache resistance in the Southwest, where Arizona and New Mexico still represented a frontier of blue-clad soldiers, Native Americans, cowboys, rustlers, and miners. But the Southwest was just the beginning of Pershing’s West. He would see assignments over the years in the Dakotas, during the Ghost Dance uprising and the battle of Wounded Knee; a posting at Montana’s Fort Assiniboine; and, following his years in Asia, a return to the West with a posting at the Presidio in San Francisco and a prolonged assignment on the Mexican-American border in El Paso, which led to his command of the Punitive Expedition, tasked with riding deep into Northern Mexico to capture the pistolero Pancho Villa. During those thirty years from West Point to the Western Front, Pershing had a colorful and varied military career, including action during the Spanish-American War and lengthy service in the Philippines. Both were new versions of the American frontier abroad, even as the frontier days of the American West were closing. All of Pershing’s experiences in the American West prepared him for his ultimate assignment as the top American commander during the Great War. If the American frontier and, more broadly, the American West provided a cauldron in which Americans tested themselves during the nineteenth century, they did the same for John Pershing. His story was a historical Western.

As the global war on terror enters its second decade, the United States military is engaged with militant Islamic insurgents on multiple fronts. But the post-9/11 war against terrorists is not the first time the United States has battled such ferocious foes. The forgotten Moro War, lasting from 1902 to 1913 in the islands of the southern Philippines, was the first confrontation between American soldiers and their allies and a determined Muslim insurgency. The Moro War prefigured American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more than superficially: It was a bitter, drawn-out conflict in which American policy and aims were fiercely contested between advocates of punitive military measures and proponents of conciliation. As in today's Middle East, American soldiers battled guerrillas in a foreign environment where the enemy knew the terrain and enjoyed local support. The deadliest challenge was distinguishing civilians from suicidal attackers. Moroland became a crucible of leadership for the U.S. Army, bringing the force that had fought the Civil War and the Plains Indian Wars into the twentieth century. The officer corps of the Moro campaign matured into the American generals of World War I. Chief among them was the future general John Pershing-who learned lessons in the island jungles that would guide his leadership in France. Rich with relevance to today's news from the Middle East, and a gripping piece of storytelling, The Moro War is a must-read to understand a formative conflict too long overlooked and to anticipate the future of U.S. involvement overseas.

The year was 1898 and army private Patrick Henry Frank was in New Orleans awaiting transport to Cuba to fight in the Spanish-American War. A change in orders and Private Frank was instead going to the Philippines. Admiral Dewey had stunningly defeated the Spanish navy at Manila Bay, but President McKinley wanted boots on the ground. Patrick Henry Frank's country was seeking its manifest destiny further west than America had ever moved. Through a riveting narrative history, author John Russell Frank chronicles the events of his family's half-century on America's frontier in the Philippineswar, adventure, colonialism, the heartbreaking deaths of family members, businesses ravaged by WW II, and internment in brutal Japanese prison camps. It is an epic story about his familys triumph and tragedy in a strange land, a story of how they came to absorb and become a part of another culture. The narrative flows from a substantial amount of intimate archival material: historically rich letters, war diaries, photographs, memoirs, and oral and video histories from the familys experiences in the Philippines. He shares a way of life and a time-period unknown or forgotten by the present generationpivotal years of America's past. In the process, the author discovers his own roots.

This comparative study of piracy and maritime violence provides a fresh understanding of European overseas expansion and colonisation in Asia. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This four-volume encyclopedia chronicles the historical roots of the United States' current military dominance, documenting its growth from continental expansionism to hemispheric hegemony to global empire. This groundbreaking four-volume encyclopedia offers sweeping coverage of a subject central to American history and of urgent importance today as the nation wrestles with a global imperial posture and the long-term viability of the largest military establishment in human history. The work features more than 650 entries encompassing the full scope of American expansionism and imperialism from the colonial era through the 21st-century "War on Terror." Readers will learn about U.S.-Native American conflicts; 19th-century land laws; early forays overseas, for example, the opening of Japan; and America's imperial conflicts in Cuba and the Philippines. U.S. interests in Latin America are explored, as are the often-forgotten ambitions that lay behind the nation's involvement in the World Wars. The work also offers extensive coverage of the Cold War and today's ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, and the Middle East as they relate to U.S. national interests. Notable individuals, including American statesmen, military commanders, influential public figures, and anti-imperialists are covered as well. The inclusion of cultural elements of American expansionism and imperialism—for example, Hollywood films and protest music—helps distinguish this set from other more limited works.