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. "To call this standout book a corrective would make it sound earnest and dutiful, when in fact it is wry, readable and often astonishing. 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. 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. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. 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. 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.
In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. But what about the actual territories-the islands, atolls, and archipelagos-this country has governed and inhabited? And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an “empire,” exercising power around the world. We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago TribuneĪ Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff PickĪ pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire
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