Benevolent Assimilation is McKinley's phrase for the civilizing mission of America in the Philippines. Miller makes a good case that the Filipinos neither needed civilizing or Christianizing since they had both. What America really wanted was a colonial empire to establish itself as a great power. McKinley did not know what he wanted, but people made him believe in the civilizing mission of the U.S. government.
What Miller demonstrates in this book is that the Philippines wanted independence and not American government. The revolt which followed the Spanish American War was long and devastated the islands. Thousands lost their lives, and American troops showed no mercy in putting down the revolt. The revolt lasted for over three years, and cost the U.S. much in men and treasure.
America won, but lost seventy years later in Vietnam.

An excellent telling of a period that most Americans and Filipinos know little or nothing about. With America's new ownership of the Philippines, we were drawn into a second conflict once the Spanish were routed. The insurrectionist movement against America brought about a bloody and savage war that cost tens of thousands of lives. The third phase was the attempt to subdue the Moros, some of the toughest and most fearless warriors on the planet. The troops involved thought they would only be fighting Spanish regulars and then sent home. Rather, many spent years fighting in jungles and swamps against a clever and determined foe, and many were then shipped off to fight the Boxer's in China in 1900, only to be returned to battle the often fiendish inhabitants of places like Sibago Island, Jolo and Samar. A classic account and ranks with "Muddy Glory" and "Little Brown Brother" to name but a couple. There isn't much written about this conflict, but the information is out there. These lessons should have taught America about getting involved in smaller nations affairs.

Stuart Miller's book is an excellent study in the political turmoil and subterfuges involved in the transition of America into an imperialist power. The book is not really a military history; the military aspects are secondary to Miller's coverage of how Americans justified, reacted to, and lied about our subjugation of the Philippines. It is a very sobering history of the river of lies poured out by the military, especially General Otis, and the administration of William McKinley. This is also a study in racism; how allegedly "superior" Anglo-Saxons needed to "civilize" and "Christianize" the Filipinos, many of whom were Catholic. Overall, this book is a good primer about a shocking and somewhat vile episode in American history. High School history teachers in particular should read this book and include it in their lessons about the outcome of our "splendid little war" with Spain. It is a sad truth that as a result of this conflict, America did not seem to learn anything about the nature of guerilla warfare with a people fighting to be free of foreign control. Our failure to profit from this episode helped propel us into another such quagmire in Vietnam, a nation not too far from the site of our earlier fiasco in the Philippines.