How to Hide an Empire - bookrastinating.com

Paperback, 528 pages

Published March 3, 2020 by Picador.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-25109-1
OCLC Number:: 5160090085

(3 reviews)

We 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, …

We 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.

7 editions

Rev. Dr. Sir Wayne Murillo III reviewed How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr

Review of 'How to Hide an Empire' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

You could be forgiven for getting confused after studying the U.S. Revolutionary War, The Declaration of Independence, and then the 800 military bases that the U.S. maintains on foreign soil.

The American revolution was not a revolution for even most white men in the colonies. Colonial America became the American Empire.

How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr covers parts of American history that is rarely taught: Self-indulgent Architecture in the Philippines, martial law in Hawaii, guano colonies, Aleutian Internment, unethical medical experiments on Puerto Ricans.

Then, Immerwahr explores the metamorphosis of American Empire from traditional land grabs and genocides to the grand American pointillist empire allowed by radio communications, air travel, finance, logistics, and insidious legal ploys.

Immerwahr's writing in How to Hide an Empire is easy to devour and worth your time.

Patuleia

rated it

Dec. 27, 2020

Jason Cosper

rated it

Feb 15

Subjects

United States
Territorial expansion

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