It has been termed an insurgency, a revolution, a guerrilla war, and a conventional war. As David J. Silbey demonstrates in this taut, compelling history, the 1899 Philippine-American War was in fact all of these. Played out over three distinct conflicts--one fought between the Spanish and the allied United States and Filipino forces; one fought between the United States and the Philippine Army of Liberation; and one fought between occupying American troops and an insurgent alliance of often divided Filipinos--the war marked America's first steps as a global power and produced a wealth of lessons learned and forgotten. In A War of Frontier and Empire , Silbey traces the rise and fall of President Emilio Aguinaldo, as Aguinaldo tries to liberate the Philippines from colonial rule only to fail, devastatingly, before a relentless American army. He tracks President McKinley's decision to commit troops and fulfill a divinely inspired injunction to "uplift and civilize" despite the protests of many Americans. Most important, Silbey provides a clear lens to view the Philippines as, in the crucible of war, it transforms itself from a territory divided by race, ethnicity, and warring clans into a cohesive nation on the path to independence. After the overwhelming American victory in the Spanish-American War, President McKinley, after considerable (he claimed) soul-searching, decided to annex the Philippine Islands. His move provoked considerable opposition from anti-imperialist Americans. More importantly, it provoked outrage among various Filipino nationalist groups, who had been struggling to liberate the islands from Spanish control. The result was a complicated, confusing, and brutal war that kept the Philippines under American control and solidified the nation's role as a Pacific power. Silbey's chronicle of that conflict is fair and frequently surprising. As Silbey indicates, the Americans were hardly brutal imperialists; their motives for holding the islands were a mixture of self-interest and altruism. Although Filipino nationalists fought bravely, they were hindered by a fragmented political movement and erratic leadership. Silbey's portrait of the personality and career of Filipino icon Emilio Aguinaldo is particularly interesting. This is a well-researched examination of a struggle that, ultimately, helped forge a new nation out of disparate elements. Jay Freeman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "David Silbey provides a much-needed introduction to the Philippine-American War. In well-written and clearly argued prose, Silbey offers a smart and provocative argument for this war's complexity, brutality, and centrality to American as well as Filipino history. Everyone with an interest in American habits of empire should read it." --Eric Rauchway, author of Blessed Among Nations "Since at least the Vietnam War of the 1960s, the Filipino revolt of 1899 against the U.S. occupation has provided crucial historical lessons in regard to American mirages about Washington's ability to nation-build and install democratic systems in fragmented, non-industrial countries. Silbey masterfully and succinctly (and, at appropriate times, graphically) analyzes that revolt and its implications for the time of Theodore Roosevelt--and George W. Bush." --Walter LaFeber, Tisch University Professor Emeritus, Cornell University David J. Silbey is an assistant professor of European history at Alvernia College in Reading, Pennsylvania. Chapter OneA WAR OF FRONTIER AND EMPIREA SummitPresident Emilio Aguinaldo sat beneath a mountain one December day of 1899 and wondered what had happened to his revolution. More than a year before, he had been the head of an Army of Liberation which controlled the great majority of the Philippine Islands. The Filipinos of that army had swept aside their centuries-long imperial overlord, the Spanish. All that remained for them was to take the capital city of Manila and declare themselves an independent republic.Manila did fall, but not to the Filipinos. Instead, a force of Americans won a series of shattering naval and military battles, captured Manila from under the noses of the revolutionary army, and then had the temerity to buy the islands from the Spanish crown. What the Filipinos had paid for in blood, the Americans had paid for with gold.Aguinaldo found to his sorrow that he could do little to prevent it. The follow-on conflict between the Americans and the Filipinos had run almost entirely the Americans' way. Filipino defeat had been so stunning and complete that Aguinaldo had been forced to dissolve his government and army in mid-November 1899 and flee into hiding, hoping to reconstitute his forces as a guerrilla army and shadow republic.He could not even guarantee his own safety. Fleeing the central plains of Luzon in mid-November 1899, Aguinaldo was pursued by relentless American forces who were not stopped even by the near-total sacrifice of a Filipino rear