Hello again everyone. We have a new, special episode of History Impossible for all of you in which we examine a less-known moment of American imperialism, as well as the downstream effects it seemed to have during the world’s authoritarian moment of the 1930s. This is adapted from an academic paper I wrote in graduate school that I previously put out for all of you to read, similar to my earlier piece, “A Revulsion of Feeling,” which focused on the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939.

We don’t often think of the positive downstream effects of imperialism, but that does not mean they do not exist. This is not some fringe position either; as I have come to understand while in graduate school, there is a growing set of ideas that demonstrate empire’s stabilizing effects and not necessarily coercive relationships that it establishes. Great examples of this include the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which promoted ethnic and even national pluralism, both before and after its decline, as well as the Ottoman Empire, during its less coercive moments (though it certainly had many, vis-à-vis religion). The United States, young as it is, has caused a lot of turmoil overseas in its own imperial adventures, but the imperial boomerang has come back around in protective ways as well, sometimes even preventing disaster from befalling it.

The story of Major General Smedley Butler and his role in those imperial adventures is one of those stories.
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