Americanization - The process of assimilating American character, manner, ideals, culture, and so on. “The Filipinos . . . hated compulsory Americanization . . . .”

sphere of influence - The territory of weaker states where a powerful state exercises the dominant control. “ . . . they began to tear away . . . economic spheres of influence from the Manchu government.”

partition - In politics, the act of dividing a weaker territory or government among several more powerful states. “Defenseless China was spared partition…”

blue blood - Person descended from nobility or aristocracy. “What manner of man was Theodore Roosevelt, the red-blooded blue blood?”

bellicose - Disposed to fight or go to war. “Incurably boyish and bellicose, Roosevelt loved to fight. . . .”

preparedness - The accumulation of sufficient armed forces and materiel to go to war. “[Roosevelt was] an ardent champion of military and naval preparedness. . . .”

corollary - A secondary inference or deduction from a main proposition that is taken as established or proven. “Roosevelt therefore devised a devious policy of ‘preventive intervention.”

banana republic - A disparaging term for the small nations of Central America, with particular reference to their political instability and poor, single-crop economies. “The United States . . . would not permit the European nations themselves to intervene in the bankrupt banana republics.”

dictum - An authoritative edict or assertion. “Roosevelt’s corollary . . . bore only a strained relation to the original dictum of 1823.”

preemptive - The prior appropriation of land or other goods, in order to prevent their appropriation by others. “. . . the corollary had considerable merit as a preemptive stroke.”