How To Hide An Empire: A History Of The Greater United States

How To Hide An Empire: A History Of The Greater United States

Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago TribuneA Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff PickA pathbreaking history of the United States? overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empireWe are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an ?empire,? exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories?the islands, atolls, and archipelagos?this country has governed and inhabited?In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century?s most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress.In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.Review"To call this standout book a corrective would make it sound earnest and dutiful, when in fact it is wry, readable and often astonishing. Immerwahr knows that the material he presents is serious, laden with exploitation and violence, but he also knows how to tell a story, highlighting the often absurd space that opened up between expansionist ambitions and ingenuous self-regard . . . It?s a testament to Immerwahr?s considerable storytelling skills that I found myself riveted by his sections on Hoover?s quest for standardized screw threads, wondering what might happen next." ?Jennifer Szalai, New York Times "[Immerwahr's] book is written in 22 brisk chapters, full of lively characters, dollops of humor, and surprising facts . . . It entertains and means to do so. But its purpose is quite serious: to shift the way that people think about American history . . . Immerwahr convincingly argues that . . . the United States replaced colonies with chemistry,' and partially 'substituted technology for territory.' It is a powerful and illuminating economic argument . . . the book succeeds in its core goal: to recast American history as a history of the 'Greater United States.' . . . deserves a wide audience, and it should find one." ?Patrick Iber, The New Republic ?[How to Hide an Empire] is full of pop-culture references and interesting anecdotes that challenge common sense. Immerwahr?s point is not to condemn empire but to explain it. And by doing so, he helps us better understand American foreign and military policy in the present?and the future . . . At its best, Immerwahr?s book describes not only a forgotten history but a history of forgetting itself.? ?Adrian Chen, New York"Consistently both startling and absorbing . . . Immerwahr vividly retells the early formation of the [United States], the consolidation of its overseas territory, and the postwar perfection of its 'pointillist' global empire, which extends influence through a vast constellation of tiny footprints." ?Harper's "[Immerwahr] writes in the manner of an entertaining and informative lecturer who cannot wait to tell the class his latest discovery from the archives . . . Gore Vidal was fond of referring to Imperial America, and not in an approving way. Were he alive to read this book he would probably endorse it, perhaps only regretting that he had not written it hi