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Dutt, Rajeshwari
Associate Professor @ Institute of Technology Mandi
Bio
Rajeshwari Dutt is Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi. Her research interests are in race and imperialism in nineteenth century Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the author of Maya Caciques in Early National Yucatán (2017) and Empire on Edge: The British Struggle for Order in Belize during Yucatán’s Caste War, 1847-1901 (2020). She is currently working on a monograph on the Nicaraguan canal route in the nineteenth century.
Geographical location : India
Research Area and Interest : race and imperialism in nineteenth century Latin America and the Caribbean
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Presentation(s)
- Summary: The late nineteenth century witnessed a revival of U.S. interest in building a transisthmian canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. While the narrative of the Panama Canal presents a triumphalist picture of U.S. efforts to build the canal it also belies the important fact that until 1902, the main thrust of Anglo-American efforts to build the canal had been focused on Nicaragua. Focusing on the years between 1898 and 1902, this paper suggests that the turn towards Panama can be understood through tracing the role of the U.S. press since the Spanish American War and signifies a new American expansionist view of Central America and the Caribbean at the turn of the twentieth century.