“Brighter Futures, Better Times”: Britain, the Empire, and Anglo-American Economic Competition in Cuba, 1898-1920

This article examines Anglo-American economic competition in Cuba in the crucial twenty years after 1898. Anglo-American economic competition on the new island nation suggest a number of things about the nature of British and American imperialism, the difficult position of smaller countries—and economies—like Cuba, and the “inevitability” of American economic pre-eminence in the evolving twentieth century. And as an important corollary to the British dimension of this question is the role that Canada and Canadian overseas investment played in the extension of Britain's economic power and influence in the wider world.