Reviews for Breaking the Bonds: Marital Discord in Pennsylvania, 1730-1830

The average rating for Breaking the Bonds: Marital Discord in Pennsylvania, 1730-1830 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-07-22 00:00:00 Larry Jefferson It is entirely unfortunate that this volume, reflecting truly impressive research conducted by Paul Kramer in examining racial relations between the US and the Philippines during the colonial period, is almost entirely obscured by his relentless use of jargon and the often abstract, esoteric quality of his analysis. Thoroughly saturated by such traditional social-science terms as "discourses" and "minoritize," Kramer goes on to employ new terms such as "exterminism," "indigenism," and "imaginaries" repetitively without defining or justifying their use in the place of perfectly adequate alternate phrases. He also fatally disconnects his analysis of US and Philippine racial perceptions, colonialism and imperialism from its historical context, setting his conclusions and judgments adrift against the comparative background of race relations in a global perspective and European colonialism more broadly. For example, the struggle of the British "dominions" to gain recognition and status (not to mention to resolve their own ongoing racial issues) during this period would surely have provided significant and interesting context to the Philippine experience. Furthermore while noting differing racial perceptions amongst groups of Filipinos and Americans, Kramer often fails to take up these various perspectives with any serious consideration, subordinating the complexity of mutual race relations and forestalling more nuanced and potentially valuable analysis. We are left to fall back on the singularity of his personal moral and theoretical judgment. "The Blood of Government" nonetheless provides useful and important insight into the US experience with the Philippines, particularly through the author's careful analysis of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and his narrative tracing the emergence of the Tydings-McDuffie act of 1934 (wherein the noble sentiments of liberty had very little to do with its passage), holding up a bright mirror to the darker reflection of the American character.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-01-16 00:00:00 Alfonso Binilla "The Blood of Government" is one of the most important works relating to Philippine-American history. This work surveys the racial attitudes of Americans and Filipinos and the importance of race in building the American colonial state. This book focuses primarily on the American colonial state in the Philippines but surveys the American colonial adventure in the context of the wider imperial world at the turn of the twentieth century. "Blood of Government" further explores race and race relations in the emerging American-Philippine colonial state and how race was not directly imported into the Philippines from the US but developed due to the collaborative nature of the American colonial experiment. "Blood of Government" is, however, not for the casual reader and this work is very dense and a slog to read. For those deeply interested in the working of the American colonial state in the Philippines, and its imperil and racial context, this is a must read.