No Middle Ground: Anti-Imperialists and Ethical Witnessing during the Philippine-American War

(Hardback)

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In No Middle Ground: Anti-Imperialists and Ethical Witnessing During the Philippine-American War, Erin L. Murphy argues that activists in the Anti-Imperialist movement against the Philippine-American War, led by the Anti-Imperialist League, followed an evolving path of ethical witnessing where leaders empathically considered the experience of imperialist violence as it was expressed by marginalized anti-imperialists. Murphy explores how the perspectives of marginalized anti-imperialists like white women, black women and men, and Filipino/as, led Anti-Imperialist League leaders, who were predominantly white men of some prominence, to evolve their activism from focusing on defending the U.S. Constitution through electoral politics and the legality of U.S. Empire to exposing the imperialist violence committed by the U. S. military as crimes against fundamental human rights. Activists believed that advocating for human rights held true to the principles in the U.S. Constitution while U.S. Empire only dismembered it. Murphy further analyzes the ways in which Anti-Imperialist League leaders and supporters began forming other organizations based on the principles of advocating for human rights and liberty, such as the National Association for Colored People, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, National Consumers League, American Civil Liberties Union, and the Ethical Society.

Reviews

Erin Murphy has delivered a historical tour de force that challenges the erasure of Black women, Black men, Filipino/as, and White women from the anti-imperialist movement. Far from being simply a narrative about the past, however, the book is vital reading for anyone who wishes to understand and resist imperialist aggression in the present. Murphy convincingly demonstrates that what we deny about our past not only empowers political divisions in the present, but also limits our imaginative capacities as to how ordinary people bearing 'ethical witness' can drive transformative social change. -- Zine Magubane, Boston College
In this insightful, heartbreaking, yet hopeful work, Erin Murphy uses the United States' imperial history in the Philippines to ask how everyday citizens can resist and stand witness to atrocities committed in their name. This book is a monument to careful historical research done in the service of urgent present-day questions. -- Nicholas Wilson, Stony Brook University

Author Bio

Erin L. Murphy is an independent scholar with a doctorate in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.