Visualizing American Empire: Orientalism and Imperialism in the Philippines

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University of Chicago Press, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 213 pages

In 1899 an American could open a newspaper and find outrageous images, such as an American soldier being injected with leprosy by Filipino insurgents. These kinds of hyperbolic accounts, David Brody argues in this illuminating book, were just one element of the visual and material culture that played an integral role in debates about empire in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.

Visualizing American Empire
explores the ways visual imagery and design shaped the political and cultural landscape. Drawing on a myriad of sources—including photographs, tattoos, the decorative arts, the popular press, maps, parades, and material from world’s fairs and urban planners—Brody offers a distinctive perspective on American imperialism. Exploring the period leading up to the Spanish-American War, as well as beyond it, Brody argues that the way Americans visualized the Orient greatly influenced the fantasies of colonial domestication that would play out in the Philippines. Throughout, Brody insightfully examines visual culture’s integral role in the machinery that runs the colonial engine. The result is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the United States, art, design, or empire.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
Charles Longfellow in the Orient
10
Edward Morse Art Amateur and the American Interior
29
Representing the Philippine Colony
59
Cartography and American Imperialism in the Philippines
89
New York Citys Victory Party for Naval Hero George Dewey
113
Architecture and American Imperialism in the Philippines
140
Taft Decorates the White House
164
Acknowledgments
172
Notes
175
Index
205
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About the author (2010)

David Brody is associate professor of design studies at Parsons School of Design, the New School. He is the author of Visualizing American Empire: Orientalism and Imperialism in the Philippines, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and coeditor of Design Studies: A Reader.

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