Millions of laborers, from the Philippines to the Caribbean, performed
the work of the United States empire. Forging a global economy
connecting the tropics to the industrial center, workers harvested
sugar, cleaned hotel rooms, provided sexual favors, and filled military
ranks. Placing working men and women at the center of the long history
of the U.S. empire, these essays offer new stories of empire that
intersect with the "grand narratives" of diplomatic affairs at the
national and international levels. Missile defense, Cold War showdowns,
development politics, military combat, tourism, and banana economics
share something in common--they all have labor histories.
This collection challenges historians to consider the labor that formed,
worked, confronted, and rendered the U.S. empire visible. The U.S.
empire is a project of global labor mobilization, coercive management,
military presence, and forced cultural encounter. Together, the essays
in this volume recognize the United States as a global imperial player
whose systems of labor mobilization and migration stretched from Central
America to West Africa to the United States itself.
Workers are also the key actors in this volume. Their stories are
multi-vocal, as workers sometimes defied the U.S. empire's rhetoric of
civilization, peace, and stability and at other times navigated its
networks or benefited from its profits. Their experiences reveal the
gulf between the American 'denial of empire' and the lived practice of
management, resource exploitation, and military exigency. When
historians place labor and working people at the center, empire appears
as a central dynamic of U.S. history.
