Daniel Immerwahr: How to Hide an Empire (2019, Penguin Random House)
416 pages
English language
Published Nov. 8, 2019 by Penguin Random House.
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.
I wanted to hate this book. I really felt like it was going to be preachy and single noted. In the end it overpowered me with excellent story telling, a very powerful grasp of history and very evenly stated rationality. It definitely has a perspective, but it is not trying to convince you as much as state the facts and allow you to decide. I ended up really liking this one despite myself.
Think you can't possibly be surprised by more crazy shit you never learned about American history? Read this!
I learned a lot about the U.S. empire that I didn't already know -- the history of the Philippines or Hawaii wasn't really covered in any class I've ever taken, and outside of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, I had never before had reason to look it up. Highly recommend this to anyone with more than a passing interest in the United States.
A strong thesis that US empire has continually existed almost since the country's independence, but overall the book jumped around and ironically overemphasized developments on the mainland. Several chapters about the Philippines during WWI and WWII seemed more like military history, and a long digression on technological innovations that reduced traditional desire for resource-rich colonies spent most of the time praising the technology and relatively little on the impact on US territories. Tl;Dr a great read but needed a better editor.
Didn't like it, nearly every page I entered the Wikipedia rabbit hole, cause there was always something new I had to read up and learn. No a fanatic read this was, truly learned and enjoyed.
