The Yanks Are Coming Over There: Anglo-Saxonism and American Involvement in the First World War

by Dino E. Buenviaje

Overview

World War I was a global cataclysm that toppled centuries-old dynasties and launched "the American century." Yet at the outset few Americans saw any reason to get involved in yet another conflict among the crowned heads of Europe. Despite its declared neutrality, the U.S. government gradually became more sympathetic with the Allies, until President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany to "make the world safe for democracy."

Key to this shift in policy and public opinion was the belief that the English-speaking peoples were inherently superior and fit for world leadership. Just before the war, British and American elites set aside former disputes and recognized their potential for dominating the international stage. By casting Germans as "barbarians" and spreading stories of atrocities, the Wilson administration persuaded the public—including millions of German Americans—that siding with the Allies was a just cause.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476668932
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	12/21/2017
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dino E. Buenviaje teaches history at Riverside City College and other campuses in Southern California.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Roots of ­Anglo-Saxonism 7 delete• deleteAnglo-Saxon Myths 8 delete• deleteBede, The ­Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Making of England 9 delete• deleteGeoffrey of Monmouth’s History of British Kings and the Arthurian Legend 11 delete• deletePost-Norman England 13
Chapter I. Anglo-Saxonism and American Culture, 1895–1914
The Roots of American ­Anglo-Saxonism 15 delete• deleteLate-Nineteenth–and Early ­Twentieth-Century ­Anglo-Saxonism 17 delete• deleteThe ­Anglo-American Community 28 delete• deleteThe White ­Anglo-Saxon Protestant 30
Chapter II. The ­German-American Connection, 1850–1914
Early German Migrations 39 delete• deleteThe Revolution of 1848 41 delete• deleteGerman-Americans and Politics 44 delete• deleteGerman-Americans and German Unification 46 delete• deleteGermans and ­Anglo-Saxonism: Common Origins and Anxieties 53
Chapter III. Anglo-Saxonism in the Foreign Policy
deleteEstablishment
The Rise of the United States 77 delete• deleteWilliam H. Seward: The Architect of Empire 78 delete• deleteChanges in American Society 80 delete• deleteAlfred Thayer Mahan and the New Navy 82 delete• deleteMahan’s Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy 87 delete• deleteTheodore Roosevelt 90 delete• deleteThe ­Anglo-American Rapprochement of the 1890s and its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy 95 delete• deleteThe Experience of the Philippines and ­Anglo-Saxonism 101 delete• deleteThe Philippine Commissions 105 delete• deleteThe Boer War: A Crisis in ­Anglo-Saxonism and the ­Anglo-American Rapprochement 109
Chapter IV. Anglo-Saxonism in the First World War
American Neutrality 120 delete• deleteWilliam Jennings Bryan vs. Robert Lansing 129 delete• deleteThe Role of the American Clergy in the First World War 135 delete• deleteThe British and American Propaganda Machines 137 delete• deleteThe ­Anglo-American Connection 144 delete• deleteAnglo-Saxonism and the First World War 148
Conclusion
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

A beautiful demonstration of cultural history.”—En Envor.

From the Publisher