Bound by War: The Philippines and the United States in the First Pacific Century

Historically Thinking

0:00

-53:06

Bound by War: The Philippines and the United States in the First Pacific Century

Christopher Capozzola on how America’s entanglement with the Philippines helped to create a Pacific century

Historically Thinking

Jul 29, 2020

Originally published on July 29, 2020 (Episode 170)

Introduction

My great-grandfather Louis Corsiglia emigrated to the United States as a boy from Genoa, and he was a lifelong anti-imperialist Democrat. So it followed from those two things that a dictum of his was that “A Sicilian is no more an Italian than a Filipino is an American.”

In its way, it’s a phrase from a lost world. If you know that Genoa is in the far north of Italy, and Sicily the uttermost south, then you get the picture. But what’s the connection between Filipinos and Americans?

My guest Christopher Capozzola’s book Bound by War: How the United States and the Philippines Built America’s First Pacific Century is a long answer to that question about connections. In 2011, the Obama Administration announced that the United States would be making a “pivot” to the Pacific. But as Capozzola makes clear, the United States has always been involved in the Pacific, and the Philippines has always been near the heart of that involvement.

About the Guest

Christopher Capozzola is Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the author of Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (Oxford University Press, 2008), and co-curator of “The Volunteers: Americans Join World War I, 1914–1919”, a traveling exhibition that originated at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. His work focuses on war, politics, and citizenship in modern American history.