Date Awarded
Fall 2016
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
American Studies
Advisor
Charles McGovern
Committee Member
Hiroshi Kitamura
Committee Member
Scott Nelson
Committee Member
Hannah Rosen
Abstract
In the field of diplomatic history, scholars have debated how the United States has played an imperial role in the world. Although diplomatic historians have presented many different interpretations, they have never agreed on the defining aspects of U.S. imperialism. My dissertation intervenes in the debate by reviewing how the United States functioned as an imperial power at the start of the twenty-first century. In my dissertation, I make use of a wide array of publicly available sources, including the public remarks of U.S. officials, the public records of the U.S. government, and the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, to describe how the United States enforced a global system of imperial order. Specifically, I argue that officials in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama began the twenty-first century by implementing an imperial grand strategy to keep the international system organized around a dominant center and a subordinate periphery in a global structure of imperialism. By showing that officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations kept each region of the world integrated into a global structure of imperialism, my dissertation intervenes in one of the key debates in diplomatic history to define how the United States functioned as an empire.
DOI
http://doi.org/10.21220/S25K5C
Rights
© The Author
Recommended Citation
Hunt, Edward P., "The Politics of Empire: The United States and the Global Structure of Imperialism in the Early Twenty-First Century" (2016). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. William & Mary. Paper 1477068418.
http://doi.org/10.21220/S25K5C
