
Arbitrating Empire Offers A New History Of The Emergence Of The United States As A Global Power-one Shaped As Much By Attempts To Insulate The Us Justice System From International Scrutiny As It Was By Efforts To Project Influence Across The Globe. Drawing On Extensive Archival Research In The United States, Mexico, Panama, And The United Kingdom, Allison Powers Traces How Thousands Of Dispossessed Residents Of Us-annexed Territories Petitioned International Claims Commissions Between The 1870s And The 1930s To Hold The United States Accountable For Myriad Forms Of State Violence. Through Attention To Their Unexpected Claims, The Book Demonstrates How Colonial Subjects, Refugees From Slavery, And Migrant Workers Transformed A Series Of Tribunals Designed To Establish The Legality Of United States Intervention Into Sites Through Which To Challenge The Legitimacy Of The Us Justice System Itself. Moving Between The Stories Of Claimants Who Challenged Racialized Violence And Economic Dispossession In Arizona Copper Mines, Texas Cotton Fields, Samoan Port Cities, Cuban Sugar Plantations, The Locks And Stops Of The Panama Canal Zone, And The Tribunals Convened In Metropolitan Capitals To Which They Turned For Redress, The Book Uncovers How Everyday People Used International Law To Hold The United States Accountable For State-sanctioned Violence During The First Decades Of The Twentieth Century-and Why The State Department's Attempts To Mitigate This Exposure Remade International Law-- Provided By Publisher.
How did the United States manage the tension between its expansionist foreign policy and the legal challenges posed by those subjected to its state-sanctioned violence? Allison Powers, a historian, utilizes extensive archival research from multiple nations to argue that the emergence of the United States as a global power was fundamentally shaped by efforts to insulate its domestic justice system from international scrutiny. By examining the petitions of thousands of dispossessed individuals, the author demonstrates how these claimants forced the U.S. to navigate international legal frameworks while attempting to maintain its own sovereign authority.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars in the field of legal history and American imperialism identify this work as a significant contribution to understanding the intersection of domestic justice and international law. Readers frequently note the meticulous archival detail and the author's ability to center the voices of marginalized claimants within the broader narrative of state power.
Page Count:
0
Publication Date:
2024-01-01
Publisher:
New York : Oxford University Press,
ISBN-10:
0190093013
ISBN-13:
9780190093013
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