SUMMARY:

The article by Thomas Metcalf explores the entangled horizons of the imperial political imagination and the transfer of the blueprints for colonial administration. Metcalf turns to the case of the U.S. takeover of the Philippines from Spain in 1898 and explores the process of setting up the colonial administration beginning in 1898 and through 1912. The author found that the U.S. officials were under the influence of the hegemony of the British Empire and sought to make the British imperial experience in the Raj and Malaya relevant to their path in the Philippines. At the same time, the author concludes that despite U.S. reliance on the established repertoire of colonial rule, U.S. rule in the Philippines displayed features of the specific imperial situation: republican public ceremonies featuring George Washington could incite thoughts of emancipation, the layer of Spanish colonial rule could not be ignored in the attempt to depict the Philippines as pure Orient, the racialized discourse of post–civil war U.S. society had repercussions with regard to the newly acquired colonial possessions. All this resulted in a great degree of exceptionalism and ambivalence in the U.S. attitude toward colonialism in the Philippines, so that despite all the borrowed imperial expertise, the U.S. official compared the Philippines not with the Raj or Malaya, but with the state of California. In conclusion, the author reflects on the tasks of comparative historical research, which acknowledges the concept of intellectual transfer and discourse of exceptionalism, the peculiarity of the regional imperial situation and universal foundations of modern colonialism.