How did American expansionism at the end of the 19th century transform Americas position in global affairs?
American expansionism entered the vast world of the Pacific in the late nineteenth century. The region seemed to offer limitless opportunities for the expansion of Christianity and civil liberty, and also for the acquisition of new markets to complement the impressive growth of American industrial and agricultural production after the American Civil War. What rendered the Pacific region especially inviting was the presumption that its civilizations could not resist the power, technology, and organizational skills of the Western world. Unlike other imperial powers, the United States did not create its Pacific empire by conquering previously independent peoples. Instead, it exploited opportunities for economic and territorial expansion already created by internal instabilities and weaknesses in regions regarded as strategically and economically important. Or it overthrew Spanish colonialism. After 1860, the application of American will in the Far East appeared so effortless that it ultim
