Bibliographic Details
Author: Thomas Borstelmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2011
Thesis Statement
Borstelmann argues that the central, unifying theme of U.S. history in the first half of the twentieth century was the nation’s conflicted and evolving engagement with the global problem of white supremacy. He posits that American domestic struggles over racial hierarchy were inextricably linked to its rise as a global power and its interactions with anti-colonial movements worldwide, creating a profound and persistent tension between democratic ideals and racialist practices.
Summary
In this sweeping and ambitious work, Borstelmann reframes the era from the Spanish-American War through World War II not merely as a story of economic transformation, depression, and war, but as a fundamental reckoning with race on a world stage. The book begins with the United States’ entry into imperial competition in 1898, an act that immediately forced Americans to confront the racial dimensions of governing foreign, non-white populations in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. This external imperialism mirrored and reinforced the rigid system of Jim Crow being codified within the United States at the same moment.
Borstelmann meticulously traces how this tension shaped American foreign policy, domestic politics, and social thought. He demonstrates how the rhetoric of World War I—a “war for democracy”—was undermined by domestic racial violence and segregation within the military, a hypocrisy noted by colonial subjects worldwide. The interwar period saw the consolidation of scientific racism and eugenics, but also the growth of transnational anti-racist and anti-colonial networks, often centered in cities like New York and Paris. World War II becomes the pivotal crisis, as the fight against the explicitly racist ideologies of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan laid bare the contradictions of American society. The need for global alliances and the service of non-white troops created powerful leverage for the early Civil Rights movement, setting the stage for the postwar decolonization and civil rights revolutions. Borstelmann’s narrative powerfully connects the dots between the Wilmington coup, the occupation of Haiti, the debates at Versailles, the Pacific theater, and the 1941 March on Washington movement.
Chapter-by-Chapter Breakdown
- Introduction: The Problem of the Twentieth Century: Establishes the book’s central argument and defines the global “color line” as the era’s defining challenge.
- Chapter 1: Imperialism and Racial Hierarchy, 1898-1914: Examines the racial ideologies underpinning U.S. expansion and their connection to domestic Jim Crow.
- Chapter 2: Whiteness and the War for Democracy, 1914-1919: Analyzes World War I as a global racial event and the missed opportunities at the Versailles peace conference.
- Chapter 3: The Racialized Pax Americana of the 1920s: Covers the international spread of Jim Crow norms, immigration restriction, and the rise of pan-Africanism.
- Chapter 4: The Global Color Line in the Great Depression: Explores how economic crisis intensified racial nationalism and scapegoating worldwide.
- Chapter 5: The Second World War and the Race Revolution, 1939-1945: The core chapter, detailing how the war simultaneously mobilized white supremacy and catalyzed the forces that would destroy it.
- Conclusion: The Postwar World and the Rising Tide: Assesses the legacy of the era, arguing World War II did not end racial hierarchy but fundamentally transformed the global terrain of struggle against it.
Scholarly Reception and Representative Quotes
Widely praised for its transnational scope and interpretive boldness, The Rising Tide of Color won the 2012 Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize. Scholars have lauded it as a “masterful synthesis” that successfully places U.S. history within a global framework. Some critics have suggested the racial lens can occasionally oversimplify other causal factors in foreign policy, but the consensus is that Borstelmann provides an indispensable and paradigm-shifting perspective on the period.
- From the Journal of American History: “Borstelmann’s great achievement is to weave together domestic and international history into a single, compelling narrative… It forces a rethinking of the standard periodization and priorities of early twentieth-century U.S. history.”
- From Foreign Affairs: “A sobering and essential read. Borstelmann demonstrates with chilling clarity how racial thinking was not a sidebar to American power but central to its exercise, creating a legacy of contradiction that the nation is still working to resolve.”