In 1899 the English writer Rudyard Kipling penned a poem entitled ‘‘The White Man’s Burden.’’ The phrase is now famous, though few probably know that Kipling was its author. Fewer still know the full title: ‘‘The White Man’s Burden: The United States and the Philippine Islands.’’ Kipling published the poem to implore the United States, which had just defeated Spain in a war, to assume control of Spain’s former colonies. By the end of the nineteenth century the United States had grown into an economic giant and had shown itself capable of vanquishing a once great European nation. Now,.
