How to Hide an Empire How to Hide an Empire

How to Hide an Empire

A History of the Greater United States

    • 4.2 • 145 Ratings
    • $12.99
    • $12.99

Publisher Description

Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune
A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick

A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire


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.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2019
February 19
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
528
Pages
PUBLISHER
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
SELLER
Macmillan
SIZE
73
MB

Customer Reviews

Mom2sixP ,

Not your mother’s history book

I enjoyed this book and learned a lot within these pages. It is politically biased which can be annoying , but it’s not so bad to stop reading . The book answers questions I’ve always wondered about and had me researching even more.

Pghfan ,

This book will have you turning pages !

Metaphorically the best and most interesting book I have ever read. I learned more from this book about US history than in 8 years of civics and history classes. We invented everything (except fertilizer) holy moly wow. You gotta read this.

Einherjar15 ,

An uncomfortable but necessary read.

This incredible examination of expansion, contraction, and transition of the contiguous United States from the popular “logo map” to empire, and then to a menagerie of pointillist bases is comprehensive and captivating. Immerwahr highlights and underscores the unpopular, the unknown, and the downright disgusting aspects of American imperial ambition. Shedding lights on the darker parts of our history is critical to repairing relationships and fostering international goodwill, and drives home the adage that those who fail to know their history are doomed to repeat it. This is a must read!

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More Books by Daniel Immerwahr

Thinking Small Thinking Small
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Cómo ocultar un imperio Cómo ocultar un imperio
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L'impero nascosto L'impero nascosto
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Das heimliche Imperium Das heimliche Imperium
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