INTO THE STACKS ARTICLE RELAUNCH: “ POWER AND CONNECTION”
The Imperial: A New Name for Some Old Ways of
Thinking
Katherine Unterman
Department of History, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX, USA
In the 1907 book Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, the American
philosopher and psychologist William James recalled a heated argument among companions
during a camping trip. The quarrel was not about one of the heavy metaphysical topics that
James addressed in his lectures, but instead a much more mundane matter: a squirrel.
Imagine a squirrel clinging to one side of a tree trunk, while a man stands on the other side
of the tree. The man attempts to catch a glimpse of the squirrel by moving around the tree,
but the squirrel darts around just as quickly, evading observation, until both creatures circle
the tree completely and end up where they started. James’s friends were at loggerheads over
the question: “Does the man go round the squirrel or not?”
1
James considered this anecdote the perfect introduction to a method of asking philosophical
questions called pragmatism. Just as his camping companions argued in circles, so too was cur-
rent philosophical discourse dominated by endless debates about abstract concepts and ideal-
ized systems that had no apparent relevance in the real world. James, in contrast, called for a
turn “towards concreteness and adequacy, towards facts, towards action and towards power.”
2
Pragmatism did not stand for specific results, but was an “attitude of orientation” that focused
on experience over theory, effects over origins, and relations between things over things in iso-
lation.
3
Above all, James valued the pragmatic method because it was useful: it allowed people
to generate knowledge that reflected the complex, pluralistic world in which they actually lived
and suggested paths for future action.
Paul A. Kramer’s 2011 article “Power and Connection” sought to breathe new life into schol-
arship about American imperialism in similar ways. Kramer’s counterpart to the pragmatic
method was “the imperial,” a mode of analysis meant to facilitate more dynamic ways of think-
ing about U.S. power and influence beyond the nation’s borders. Like pragmatism, the imperial
can be hard to pin down because it is more a lens for seeing than a specific research agenda; it is
like a new pair of glasses that historians can put on, then direct their eyes wherever they choose.
The imperial, Kramer explained, illuminates “the way that power resides in and operates
through long-distance connections; the mutual and uneven transformation of societies through
these connections; and comparisons between large-scale systems of power and their histo-
ries” (1350). Or, to put it more succinctly, it foregrounds relationships of power, connection,
and comparison. As the other historians in this forum confirm, “Power and Connection”
has inspired innovative scholarship over the past decade.
While “Power and Connection” alludes to social theorists such as Hegel, Marx, and Foucault,
there is no indication that Kramer’s work was influenced by pragmatism or the thought of
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, dis-
tribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
1
William James, “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking,” in Pragmatism and Other
Writings (New York, 2000), 24.
2
Ibid., 27.
3
Ibid., 29.
Modern American History (2024), 7, 150– 153
doi:10.1017/mah.2023.43
https://doi.org/10.1017/mah.2023.43 Published online by Cambridge University Press
William James.
4
Nevertheless, James and Kramer engaged in parallel missions: to rescue their
fields from what they saw as dead-end debates; to promote innovative, forward-looking ques-
tions; and to synthesize promising new perspectives. Pairing these scholars together illuminates
broader insights for revitalization that are not discipline-specific. James and Kramer offer four
lessons that might inspire any scholar who wishes to reinvigorate a field of inquiry, who does not
shy away from big and bold questions, and, above all, who seeks to produce work that is useful.
First, they warned us that definitional debates can be intellectual traps. While it is certainly
important to define one’s terms, many of the seemingly intractable clashes within their respec-
tive fields actually hinged on mere semantic differences. Responding to his friends’ argument
about the squirrel, James observed that the dispute boiled down to the definition of “to go
round.” Did it mean that the man moved to the north, south, east, and west of the squirrel
(which he did), or did it mean that he faced the squirrel’s head, then one of its sides, then
its tail, and then the other side (which he did not)? With this simple distinction, James did
not fully resolve his companions’ arguments; they could still bicker over the proper definition
of “to go round.” But he took the first step in deflating the debate from the high realm of meta-
physical warfare to the more prosaic matter of dictionary entries.
Historians of the early 2000s also chased their tails in endless disagreements over whether and
when the United States has been an empire. Many relied on self-created definitions of empire,
which overlapped but were rarely identical, often consisting of a checklist of key characteristics
of past empires.
5
If U.S. international power did not meet every item on that checklist, it was
treated as inherently different from empire. Rather than facilitating meaningful comparisons
across time and space, such definitions ended up drawing strict lines around what could be com-
pared and precluded avenues of analysis. Stepping away from these “questions of semantics,”
Kramer recognized that “empire” is a concept invented by humans; it is not something with
an independent existence in the world, apart from the meaning that we give the word (1349).
He cautioned historians to “avoid connotations of unity and coherence—thingness—that tend
to adhere” to the word empire (1350). Thinking in terms of the imperial moves us past the
all-or-nothing, black-and-white litmus tests of empire, inviting historians to investigate the
gray areas.
Second, James and Kramer both encouraged a shift in focus from nouns to verbs—from
static concepts to activity, from substance to process, from plans and intentions to relationships
and consequences.
6
In his writings, James emphasized that any theory of the mind must rec-
ognize the ever-shifting flux of experience and sensation; his 1890 Principles of Psychology
coined the phrase “stream of consciousness” to describe the phenomenon of constant change
even amidst the perception of continuity.
7
Likewise, fluctuation and unsteadiness are inherent
even within seemingly stable projections of international power. Continuous, evolving struggles
and negotiations underlie relations ranging from domination to collaboration. Instead of focus-
ing on what the imperial is, Kramer suggested that “we should instead emphasize what it does
… it is these ends that are most critical, and not the use or non-use of the words ‘imperial’ and
4
Incidentally, James was an ardent anti-imperialist strongly opposed to U.S. occupation of the Philippines after
1898.
5
Some examples of these “checklist” definitions of empire, in which historians list two or more specific charac-
teristics that all empires must meet, include Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power
and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, 2010), 8; Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, American Umpire (Cambridge, MA,
2013), 12; Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire (New York, 2004), 10; and Charles S. Maier,
Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 24–25. A. G. Hopkins cri-
tiques this type of exacting definition, remarking, “Historians … cannot define empires with the precision that bot-
anists can name plants.” A. G. Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History (Princeton, 2018), 22.
6
The observation that James shifted from living in nouns to living in verbs comes from Robert D. Richardson,
William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism (New York, 2006), 670.
7
See Chapter IX, “The Stream of Thought,” in William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume I (New York,
1890).
Modern American History 151
https://doi.org/10.1017/mah.2023.43 Published online by Cambridge University Press
‘empire’ themselves” (1349).
8
This shift from noun-questions to verb-questions not only
enables a fuller account of how American power has operated across borders, but it also allows
historians to converse more constructively with each other. They do not need to agree on
whether the United States “is” or “has” an empire to learn from each other’s findings about
the dynamic power relations among international actors.
Third, James and Kramer suggested that we consider how subjective factors might affect schol-
ars’ judgments. W e like to believe that our conclusions are the pur e end-products of logical re a-
soning and objective analysis; yet we are all human beings who exist in a particular time and place,
with dispositions, perspectiv es, and assumptions that inevitably affect our academic work. In
Pragmatism, James proposed that one’s philosophical leanings depended primarily on one’stem-
perament, distinguishing between “tender-minded” rationalists and “tough-minded” empiricis ts.
9
James’s o wn thought was deeply influenced by events within his lifetime, such as the Civil War
and the spread of Darwinism.
10
Wisely , Kramer r efrained fr om ps ychoanalyzing his colleagues,
but he did note that scholarship on American empir e has peaked when the U.S. military has
been involved in contr o versial wars, invasions, and occupations, such as Vietnam, Iraq, and
Afghanis tan. “The terms historians think with are informed, both productiv el y and unproduc-
tively, by the discursive worlds that surround them,” he observed (1390). One might go even far-
ther and suggest that historians who tackle the question of whether or not the United Sta tes is an
empire often hav e a predetermined answer in mind. No set of archival discov eries is likely to
change their views, though they ma y fine-tune their arguments and definitions. This is not to
say that such scholarship is invalid, simply that more open-ended research questions—lik e
those facilitated by the imperial lens—ar e less lik ely to give rise to confirma tion bias.
Finally, James and Kramer expressed the merits of their proposed methods in terms of util-
itarian value. While their specific intellectual agendas differed, they shared the same broader
goal: to generate useful questions that help us understand our complex, pluralistic world as
it is really experienced. Ultimately, James’s response to the squirrel debate amounted to a
shrug: who cares? Or, as a historian might put it, what’s at stake? Does the answer to this ques-
tion help us more accurately understand the world we inhabit or make wiser decisions within
it? For James, pragmatism was ultimately a guide to living and to action, and the squirrel debate
furthered neither. In “ Power and Connection,” Kramer repeatedly highlighted practical utility
as well, calling the imperial a “useful concept” to be approached “pragmatically” that “offers
potentially fruitful lines of comparative inquiry” (1348, 1349, 1352). Among these, Kramer
mentioned the “possibilities an imperial analytic opens for the writing of national, and non-
national, histories more generally” (1349). Though he does not frame this as a guide to living,
as James does, that is exactly what powerful works of history have the potential to be.
James and Kramer identified a peril within any scholarly discipline: topics with the potential
to generate exciting discoveries can get stuck in definitional or other circular debates that hijack
more useful analyses. For example, valuable discussions about slavery’s role in the early
American economy and the extent to which it was part of a capitalist system can sometimes
morph into insular debates about the definition of capitalism.
11
Likewise, since 2016, scholars
have argued about the use of the word “fascism” in connection with the political career of
Donald Trump—another important discussion that risks devoting more attention to semantics
and the politics of analogies than to serious comparative analysis.
12
This is not to say that terms
8
Emphasis added.
9
James, Pragmatism,8–12.
10
Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (New York, 2001).
11
Many of these definitional debates arose in response to Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told:
Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York, 2014).
12
For an analysis of debates about the comparative study of fascism, see Samuel Moyn, “The Trouble with
Comparisons,” New York Review of Books, May 19, 2020, https://www.nybooks.com/online/2020/05/19/the-
trouble-with-comparisons/ (accessed Aug. 1, 2023).
152 Katherine Unterman
https://doi.org/10.1017/mah.2023.43 Published online by Cambridge University Press
like “empire,”“capitalism,” and “fascism” are merely floating signifiers, devoid of any meaning.
However, scholarship about these topics is at its best when arguments do not rely upon the
meaning of any one word, but instead describe power dynamics, illuminate connections, and
engage in enlightening comparisons.
The squirrel at the center of the argument among William James’s camping companions was
probably an eastern gray, or Sciurus carolinensis. Native to North America, the eastern gray
squirrel is now considered an invasive alien species by the European Union because of its threat
to the Eurasian red squirrel.
13
Should we define this as a form of American ecological imperi-
alism? Paul Kramer’s “Power and Connection” reminds us why that may not be the most prag-
matic question for us to ask.
13
Arthur Neslen, “EU Clamps Down on Grey Squirrels and Other Invasive Wildlife,” The Guardian, Sept. 25, 2015,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/25/eu-clamps-down-on-grey-squirrels-and-other-invasive-
wildlife (accessed Aug. 1, 2023).
Modern American History 153
https://doi.org/10.1017/mah.2023.43 Published online by Cambridge University Press
