Award-winning nonfiction writer and former investigative journalist Joe Jackson joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about President Trump’s “Don-roe Doctrine” and his imperial ambitions in Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, and beyond. Jackson, the author of a new book, Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and The Birth of American Empire, explains how Trump’s plan relies on the template set by the Spanish-American War, through which the U.S. rose as a world power and ended Spanish rule in the Western Hemisphere. Jackson sheds light on the rhetoric that fueled the war, as well as the violent history of U.S. military interference in Cuba and the Philippines. Jackson takes us through iterations of the Monroe Doctrine and outlines the impact of that philosophy on Trump’s desire for imperial expansion as well as his authoritarian control domestically, in cities like Minneapolis. He discusses how the Spanish-American War served as a turning point for America’s soul, including writers of the time, and how it birthed a culture of war that has continued to impact the nation, its citizens, and the world ever since. Jackson reads from Splendid Liberators.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Joe Jackson

• The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire
• Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic
• Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary

Other Books:

• The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
• The Winning of the West, Volumes 1-4, by Theodore Roosevelt
• Carl Sandburg
• McTeague by Norris
• "The Storytellers of Empire" by Kamila Shamsie – Guernica 
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T.E. Lawrence
• Jose Marti Reader: Writings on the Americas
• Noli mi Tangere (Touch Me Not) by Jose Rizal
• On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
• Cuba in Wartime by Richard Harding Davis
• The Essential Frank Norris, incl. The Octopus
• Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Other Links:

• Society of American Historians
• Western Writers of America
• True West Magazine
• Monroe Doctrine (1823, archive.gov)
• Roosevelt Corollary (19o5, archive.gov)
• “Manifest Destiny” by John Fiske, March 1885 Harper’s Magazine Archives (subscription to read)
• Trump’s Manifest Destiny - Project Syndicate
• Library of Congress: “Remember the Maine!”

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.