| Abstract |
"Tens of thousands of Filipino soldiers and sailors fought and died under the American flag in the Pacific during the Second World War. Yet Americans know little about these casualties, because they know little about America's long history in the Philippines -- or about Filipinos' long history in the US armed forces. Since US Marines first occupied the islands in 1898, war and military service have created an enduring, often-fraught bond between Americans and Filipinos: the axis on which America's first Pacific Century turned. In Bound by War, award-winning historian Christopher Capozzola offers a revelatory new portrait of twentieth-century American foreign relations by following the generations of Filipinos and Americans who crossed the Pacific in military uniforms in the century after America's ships first steamed into Manila Bay. Whether in steel ships or nuclear subs, it is from the Philippines that the United States has faced a series of Pacific rivals since the late 1800s. The Philippine islands were where American forces built the first of their overseas military bases, where they learned to use napalm, and where they mastered waterboarding. Capozzola reveals how the islands were a proving ground for pivotal American figures, including William Howard Taft, John J. Pershing, Dwight Eisenhower, Paul Wolfowitz, and John McCain. And all along, from the first Philippine Scouts in 1899 to third-country contract workers in Afghanistan, Filipino soldiers have been crucial partners in the exercise of U.S. power in Asia. Investigating the uneven partnership between America and the Philippines over many decades, Capozzola recounts the violence, exploitation, and racial discrimination that Filipino service members experienced at the hands of Americans, while also showing how military service offered Filipinos steady wages, immigration visas, and other opportunities. The Pacific Century was not only a rhetorical strategy of U.S. foreign policy but a lived reality that shaped migration, work, and family life. Epic in scope and rich in detail, Bound by War retells the history of the United States from a Pacific perspective, revealing the United States as a colonizing and occupying power, a longstanding and formidable military presence in the Pacific, and an intensely ambivalent nation of immigrants. It is a fresh and definitive portrait of two nations and their decades of fateful entanglement."-- Provided by publisher. |
