| Response sheet 6, for class, Thursday | |
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In November 1906 Theodore Roosevelt took the first trip outside the United States by a sitting U.S. President. He went to Panama, to tour the canal construction site, two years into its progress. Roosevelt exchanged formal public addresses with the first president of Panama. 1. How did each of the two leaders envision the future of Panama, once the canal was constructed and operational? Did their views mostly converge or mostly diverge?Alfred Thayer Mahan was most famous for his 1890 book The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. Despite his personal origins as the son of a U.S. Military Academy professor, Mahan instead chose to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and devoted his career to advocating for a strong navy in emulation of the British empire. In 1888 he met and befriended — and thereafter influenced — future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. 2. How did the Panama Canal figure into Mahan’s vision of the future? 3. How did Panama and Panamanians figure into his vision of the Panama Canal? |