| Popis: |
This study is basically concerned with the spatial distribution of economic development and its relationship to the geopolitical processes as they emerge in the setting of the American landscape of the 19th century and their impact on 20th-century world power relations. The various historical processes are discussed as they relate to the rapid economic expansion and the westward movement of the frontier on the American continent and their influence on the geopolitical role America projects in today's world affairs. American ascendancy to national power, due in part to the closing of the frontier in the 1890s and increasing economic nationalism, resulted in expanding economic and later political penetration overseas and went hand in hand with naval exigency. The Spanish-American War at the end of the 19th century marked a turning-point in the world-wide geopolitical power position of the United States. The war left an important impact on domestic as well as on foreign policy and made the United States a world power to be reckoned with. It is the author's contention that 20th-century American foreign policy, especially those aspects sometimes referred to as a policy of containment against any one power wishing to achieve hegemony, either in the Americas, the European or the Pacific realms, ‘in a coalition hostile to her own interests’, has been concerned with these issues ever since independence was achieved. Its full implementation obviously had to wait until the United States had become a formidable economic, political and military power and thus could influence world-wide power decisions. |
