A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902
Silbey, a historian at Alvernia College, merits praise for the best  brief introduction to the complex subject of the U.S. conquest of the  Philippines now available. Synthesizing a broad spectrum of published  scholarship from both Philippine and American sources, he convincingly  establishes that the Philippine-American War included three separate conflicts.  The first was a Filipino-American war against Spain, which the Filipinos were  on the point of winning by themselves. In the second, the U.S. decisively  outfought the embryonic Philippine Republic. Silbey establishes the U.S.  decision to annex the Philippines as a transition from a frontier to a global  ethos, incorporating spiritual, modernist and Darwinian elements, aided by the  American army. However, that lost war defined Filipino national identity—far  more so than the third war, which was a guerrilla conflict between the U.S.  armed forces and an increasingly locally focused insurgency. Though the  American victory involved episodes of brutality, Silbey demonstrates that it  was sufficiently quick, decisive and humane, and the former opponents  cooperated so amicably, that Americans were arguably deceived regarding the  general prospects of reconciling enemies. As America contributed to Philippine  nationalism by establishing economic, social and linguistic connections, he  shows that Filipino defeat came to look like victory.(Mar.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.