A Mythed Opportunity: U.S. Isolationism 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc.

 

C. Vann Woodward’s sentiment “America is an innocent nation in a wicked world able to obtain freely and innocently that which other

Professor Woodward says thinks that make me go Hmmm.... click here

nations sought by the sword” is one of those lines I had to re-read over and over to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind.  Happy with my reading comprehension I thought about Woodward’s sentiment and the complex connections among national identity, myth, history education, and foreign policy. Combine that with free/open educational resources and you get a nexus where Benedict Anderson meets Khan Academy meets Howard Gardner. That is some imagined community.

Gardner wrote “Over time and cultures, the most robust and most effective form of communication is the creation of a powerful narrative.” Applied to American Foreign Policy,  the traditional standard narrative establishes a myth of isolationism  in which the Spanish-American War of 1898 followed by the  little known or discussed Philippine-American Warwas an imperial aberration. Professor Hilde Restad in the article “Old Paradigms in History Die Hard in Political Science: US Foreign Policy and American Exceptionalism” (by the way this is from the inaugural issue of the new journal American Political Thought, and is available online for free for about 3 more weeks?) notes  “isolationism  (and its present colloquialism ‘aloofness’ means essentially keeping the world at a distance and tending to one’s own business, whereas internationalism means being actively engaged in world affairs.”  This myth is perpetuated by high school History courses, state standards, textbooks, testing agencies, the College Board, and International Baccalaureate establishing a simplified binary of us/them and  isolationism/interventionism that is not indicative of 21st century education expectations, international realities, or contemporary trends in historical research.

Restad continues, “contemporary historians do not think early US foreign policy was isolationist at all… it constitutes the old paradigm among historians that speak to a certain discourse on US identity…They rely on outdated assumptions and do not explain US Foreign policy traditions very well…Today, however, historians of US foreign relations reject the term “isolationsim” as a valid description for early American Foreign Policy…the foreign policy dichotomy is outdated  and incorrect…”  A sample of recent scholarship supporting Restad and challenging the isolationism myth includes:

 

The evidence continues. In America’s Backyard: The United States & Latin America from the Monroe Doctrine to the War on Terror Grace Livingston’s survey’s United States’ “180 years of intervention” in Latin America.  Her first chapter identifies U.S. interwar political, military, and economic intervention in the Dominican Republic (1916-1924), Guatemala (1920), Honduras (1919, 1924, 1925), and Panama (1921, 1925).

Two more examples, Mary Renda’s 2001 work, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 and Michel Gobat’s 2005 Confronting the American Dream: Nicaragua under U.S. Imperial Rule are emblematic of research throughout Latin America. Both authors summarize U.S. encounters under an imperial dynamic touted since the end of the Cold War. Both texts’ openings are notably explicit in regard to U.S. intervention. Renda writes: “The United States invaded Haiti in July 1915 and subsequently held the second oldest independent nation in the Western Hemisphere under military occupation for nineteen years. While in Haiti, marines installed a puppet president, dissolved the legislature at gunpoint, denied freedom of speech, and forced a new constitution on the Caribbean nation- one more favorable to foreign investment.” 

Gobet follows suit in his summation of U.S. involvement in Nicaragua:

“The occupation of 1912-1933 represented the greatest U.S. effort to turn Nicaragua into ‘a little United States’. (The occupation) profoundly destabilized Nicaragua. Most notably, it produced…protracted civil war…led to the disruptive U.S. takeover of Nicaragua’s finances under the aegis of dollar diplomacy… subverted the existing order by facilitating the dramatic spread of U.S. Protestant missionary activity…enabled a U.S. established military institution to become the most powerful political force …that helped produce Central America’s lengthiest dictatorship, the Somoza dynasty of 1936-1979.

You can imagine my level of  excitement around the possibility of finding a high school textbook that refuted the isolation myth when I read this History News Network post about the release of a new open source textbook:

“A group of thirty historians put together a comprehensive US survey textbook that is COMPLETELY FREE for students to read online. Students who don’t want to read 500 pages online can buy the paper copy at their college bookstore-just like any other textbook. Volume 2 (after 1865) has been published and the reviews on this book have been very strong, and there are hundreds of maps and images-something that is often missing from value textbooks. The book also does a superior job of presenting US history in a global context. It’s real easy to read online-lots of viewing options and students can take notes and view study guides. As adjuncts, we are uniquely qualified to know what our students are going through when purchasing textbooks:) And we are also unique in that we depend upon maintaining the goodwill of students–imagine the kind of goodwill this would create? I love to hear about other great innovations that will help us get books (websites are great but I think there is no substitute for books) into the hands of students without breaking their budgets. Here is the link to the book. It’s generated some great press but given the fact that it is free means there will be no book reps coming to your office-so please spread the word as I am doing.”

The textbook is viewable here.  My hope was quickly dashed when I did a word search for “isolationism” which produced these all too familiar mythological sentiments:

  • “symbolized the end of American isolationism and prompted a similar response.”
  • “However, two decades of isolationism kept US military spending…”
  • “…the United States transitioned from isolationism to intervention.”
  • “…policy that was similar to the isolationism of earlier periods in US “

Ugghhh. The Flatworld Knowledge textbook is a disappointment on this subject and represents  a missed opportunity to de mystify and

America's Backyard... doesn't sound isolationist. Click here for an animated map

de-mythologize US History.  The question is why? Why did the authors confront this myth?  What are your comments?  I will give it a shot below:

The implications of “fashioning new historical narratives that expand beyond the scope of the nation” ultimately challenge the long standing tradition of national historical narratives. Moreover, Historian Ian Tyrrell, sees this process as an advantage to “conceptualizing American history better.”  The scholarship cited here questions the long standing tradition of U.S. isolationism between World War I and World War II.  Each cite distinct, overt, intentional, long-term American intervention in nation-states between 1918 and 1941. Yet, the myth of American isolationism remains intact, part of the American consciousness and official narrative.

 

Continued use of American isolationism implies a set of qualifications regarding U.S. history.

1)      Isolationism refers only to American affairs in military actions in Europe.

2)      Isolationism is indicative of reluctant American interventionism.

Taken together, qualified “American isolationism” is a constructed concept limited by a bounded geo-political structure. It casts the U.S. in a historical context  of exceptionalism resistant to the lure of intervention practiced by other nation-states. Internationalizing U.S. historical memory effectively dispels any claims to U.S. interwar isolationism as a viable concept.  Whether defined as militaristic, political, economic, or cultural, U.S. intervention was the norm, not the exception in the 1920’s and 1930’s. A paradigm change has profound impact on knowledge, memory, and understanding. To these ends, the transnational challenge ask us to rethink national dogma found in historical narratives. The emerging clarity affecting national identity positions nations to better engage themselves and the world.

Simply put, the US has never been isolationist.  Why would it be? Celebrating Woodward’s sentiment in our education system limits students’ knowledge and fails to prepare them for the world.  Educators who end  this myth are better preparing their students and should be recognized, supported, and celebrated for their efforts.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “A Mythed Opportunity: U.S. Isolationism 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 etc.

  1. Dear Craig Perrier,
    Hi, I’m a journalist who’s writing a thinkpiece for The National Interest on the myth of US isolationism, v much in synch with this post, part of which I’d love to quote, on the persistence of this myth through textbooks, state standards, testing agencies. Tell me, what is the most accurate and perhaps elegant way to refer to your present job title– you coordinate the social studies curriculum for the DoD’s global network of middle- and high schools? Or is there a better way to describe you. Many thanks, Chase Madar, chase.madar@gmail.com and by the way, looks like you’re doing absolutely first-rate work, the DoD is v lucky to have you–

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