"Teaching Empire is undeniably an important contribution to U.S. empire studies, particularly tutelary colonialism. Eittreim’s work is remarkable and meticulous."—Pacific Historical Review
"Will appeal to students of the off-reservation boarding school movement as well as those seeking to deepen their knowledge of imperial education overseas."—American Indian Culture and Research Journal
“Eittreim’s work impressively connects US civilizing missions for Native Americans and Filipinos through the realm of education. This book would be excellent reading for courses examining the history of education, empire, or Filipino or Native American policy.”—H-Net Reviews
“After the Indian wars and the nation’s subsequent conquest of the Philippines, it fell to teachers to win over the hearts and minds of children now living within the confines of the American empire. In this important study, Eittreim tells us much about who these teachers were, their role in advancing the colonial project, and their day-to-day encounters with the ‘other.’”—David Wallace Adams, author of Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875–1928 and Three Roads to Magdalena: Coming of Age in a Southwest Borderland, 1890–1990
“Colonization does not just happen. It requires human agency. By placing the foot soldiers of assimilation and civilization at the center of the story, Elisabeth Eittreim offers salient historical lessons for how ordinary Americans have actively shaped the contours and practices of the US imperial education project. As this important book suggests, if we have the capacity to advance colonial rule, we also have the capacity to dismantle it.”—Clif Stratton, author of Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship
“This important new look at teaching in the context of empire is engaging, enraging, and intimate. From Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to Manilla, American teachers at the turn of the twentieth century followed closely behind the violent expansion of the American empire in search of work, adventure, and meaning. In vivid prose, Eittreim recovers their world, unpacking the quotidian paradoxes of living, loving, surviving, and, of course, teaching at the end of a gun.”—Benjamin Justice, professor and chair of the Department of Educational Theory, Policy, and Administration, Rutgers Graduate School of Education