In the late nineteenth century, American teachers descended on the Philippines, which had been newly purchased by the U.S. at the end of the Spanish-American War. Motivated by President McKinley’s project of “benevolent assimilation,” they established a school system that centered on English language and American literature to advance the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which was held up as justification for the U.S.’s civilizing mission and offered as a promise of moral uplift and political advancement. Meanwhile, on American soil, the field of American literature was just being developed and fundamentally, though invisibly, defined by this new, extraterritorial expansion. Drawing on a wealth of material, including historical records, governmental documents from the War Department and the Bureau of Insular Affairs, curriculum guides, memoirs of American teachers in the Philippines, and 19th century literature, Meg Wesling not only links empire with education, but also demonstrates that the rearticulation of American literary studies through the imperial occupation in the Philippines served to actually define and strengthen the field. Empire’s Proxy boldly argues that the practical and ideological work of colonial dominance figured into the emergence of the field of American literature, and that the consolidation of a canon of American literature was intertwined with the administrative and intellectual tasks of colonial management.

Explores the impact of colonial domination and defends Puerto Rican anti-imperialist struggles.

In a stunningly original look at the American Declaration of Independence, David Armitage reveals the document in a new light: through the eyes of the rest of the world. Not only did the Declaration announce the entry of the United States onto the world stage, it became the model for other countries to follow. Armitage examines the Declaration as a political, legal, and intellectual document, and is the first to treat it entirely within a broad international framework. He shows how the Declaration arose within a global moment in the late eighteenth century similar to our own. He uses over one hundred declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. He discusses why the framers’ language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted in the rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements—from Haiti to Vietnam, and from Venezuela to Rhodesia. Included is the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world. An eye-opening list of declarations of independence since 1776 is compiled here for the first time. This unique global perspective demonstrates the singular role of the United States document as a founding statement of our modern world.

Most people believe India’s struggle for independence to have begun with Mahatma Gandhi. Little credit goes to the proof that this call for a mass movement did not arise out of a void. For the past century and more, historians have overlooked the phase of twenty-five years of intense creative endeavour preceding and preparing for the Mahatma’s advent. The reason for this systematic omission has been the fundamentally radical nature of the revolutionary programme put to practice by Indian leaders of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jugantar was diametrically distinct from the dream of non-violence floated by the Mahatma and the Congress. Very well documented with inputs from Indian, European and American archives, the present study carefully straightenes out the origins – philosophical, historical and religious and intellectual, so to say – of Indian nationalism. From Rammohun to Sri Aurobindo, passing through Marx and Tagore, the full set of ideological views has been analysed here. Unknown up to this day, the sustained focus in this volume on the outlook and the activities of these revolutionaries inside India and abroad brings home the ‘very sophisticated understanding of the contemporary political reality’ that made their leader Jatindranath Mukherjee, the ‘right hand man’ of Sri Aurobindo, the very emblem of an epoch and its aspirations. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

Most people believe India's struggle for independence to have begun with Mahatma Gandhi. Little credit goes to the proof that this call for a mass movement did not arise out of a void. The present study with inputs from Indian, European and American archives, carefully straightens out the origins - philosophical, historical and religiou