María Acosta Cruz, Dream Nation: Puerto Rican Culture and the Fictions of Independence (Rutgers 2014) Jefferson’s appointed governor to Louisiana Territory, like Arthur St. Clair, griped about the “mental darkness” of Louisiana’s inhabitants. Allowing them to vote, he believed, “would be a dangerous experiment.” The book opens as Immerwahr introduces the concept of the "logo map" of the United States—a familiar representation of the mainland U.S. that excludes the country's imperial possessions. He argues that this conventional map is symbolic and fails to account for the numerous overseas territories and military bases that have significantly influenced America's economic and political power around the world. One of the things I learned from this review is that the danger of well-intended US historians trying to go transnational is that they can end up oddly reproducing the very imperialism they seek to critique!

He is a professor of history at Northwestern University. [3] His work has appeared in n+1, Slate, Jacobin, [4] and Dissent. [5] Works [ edit ] i12469858x |b1160002872283 |dvlnf |g- |m |h1 |x0 |t0 |i3 |j70 |k190227 |n09-12-2020 16:32 |o- |a973 |rIMMThinking Small: The United States and the Lure of Community Development Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press 2015. ISBN 978-0-6742-8994-9, OCLC 949790596 The chapter showcases the disillusionment of Puerto Rican nationalists. But it also highlights a main source of their disillusionment: Wilson’s hypocritical pursuit of international freedom while failing to aid independence movements across the world. How to Hide an Empire takes you on a whirlwind tour of the islands and territories the U.S. has governed from the 19th century on. It draws you in with smartly weaved, gripping stories and constructs an impressively expansive tale of America’s global conquests. Manifest destiny takes on a whole new meaning. Simmering beneath all these stories is a powerful throughline: As classic colonialism was being fazed out in the 20th century, a new, more covert form of empire-building set in – with the U.S. at the forefront. It’s not a stretch to say that this book will make you think about American history in a new way." —Ramtin Arablouei, NPR The National Guano Act of 1856 authorized citizens of the United States to take possession of and exploit unclaimed islands, reefs, and atolls containing guano deposits. The islands had to be uninhabited and not within the jurisdiction of another government. The act specifically referred to such islands as possessions of the United States.

i134722218 |b3325302045636 |dddanf |g- |m |h9 |x0 |t1 |i0 |j300 |k201210 |n02-03-2023 23:33 |o- |a973 IMMERWAHR Some indigenous groups, like the Cherokee Nation, adopted aspects of European culture. However, white settlers' hunger for land and the discovery of gold in Cherokee territory led to conflicts, ultimately forcing the Cherokees to either submit to Georgia's authority or move westward. This relocation, known as the "Trail of Tears," saw around 16,000 Cherokees forcibly moved to present-day Oklahoma: Paul A. Kramer, “How Not to Write the History of U.S. Empire,” Diplomatic History 42: 5 (2018): 911-31. To answer this question, Immerwahr delves into the intricate dynamics between these military installations and their effects on both the host nations and America's position as a dominant global power. Within this conversation, he interweaves a discussion of how American culture and industry have globalized. The post-war era was complex and deeply entangled, yet Immerwahr navigates its history—and nuance—with practiced ease. That was an apt characterization. The first governor of the Northwest Territory, Arthur St. Clair, a conservative Scotsman who’d been Washington’s aide-de-camp, had little patience for the rambunctious frontier. He saw himself as a “poor devil banished to another planet.” The territory, in his eyes, was a “dependent colony,” inhabited not by “citizens of the United States” but by its “subjects” (“white Indians” is how one of the territorial judges described them). Feeling the territorial inhabitants too “ignorant” and “ill qualified” to govern themselves, St. Clair used his wide discretionary powers to impede the formation of states.

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What was this non-state territory? The Constitution was notably close-lipped, discussing the matter only in a single sentence. It granted Congress the power “to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States.” Thus the founding document, which went into extravagant detail about amendments, elections, and the division of power, left wide open the question of how much of the land was to be governed. Stuart Schwartz, Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina (Princeton 2015), xiv-xv. The introduction highlights the importance of the territories in shaping the United States' history and identity. It challenges the conventional view of the country as a contiguous entity and argues that it should be viewed in its entirety, from mainland states to large colonies to tiny islands.

PDF / EPUB File Name: How_to_Hide_an_Empire_-_Daniel_Immerwahr.pdf, How_to_Hide_an_Empire_-_Daniel_Immerwahr.epub Hidden by Rand McNally, the Department of the Interior, and HTH is that the federal government does not want Americans to notice the non-incorporated territories or what their existence means about the character of the United States. The federal government and elements of the Puerto Rican political elite have invested a great deal in the illusion of decolonization via Commonwealth status. State governments, even in my home state of New York, have not included this history in K-12 social studies curricula. If most Americans learn nothing about this in school, how can they be ready to hear the truth if they somehow come across it in a bookstore, or on TV or a podcast? [39] A richly detailed, thoroughly researched history . . . the author engagingly depicts the nations' conquests . . . Immerwahr animates the narrative with a lively cast of characters . . . A vivid recounting of imperial America's shameful past." —Kirkus (Starred 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 [Herbert] Hoover's quest for standardized screw threads, wondering what might happen next. But beyond its collection of anecdotes and arcana, this humane book offers something bigger and more profound. How to Hide an Empire nimbly combines breadth and sweep with fine-grained attention to detail. The result is a provocative and absorbing history of the United States—"not as it appears in its fantasies, but as it actually is." The New York Times - Jennifer SzalaiYou end an early chapter on medicine in Puerto Rico and the fact that potentially awful things that were done there were virtually unknown outside of Puerto Rico by saying that that is how you hide an empire. 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

Immerwahr peppers his account with colourful characters and enjoyable anecdotes. This tale of territorial empire, he suggests, throws light on the histories of everything from the Beatles to Godzilla, the birth-control pill to the transistor radio." — The Economist A pathbreaking history of the United States’ overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empireChristina Duffy Burnett and Burke Marshall, eds., Foreign in a Domestic Sense: Puerto Rico, American Expansion, and the Constitution (Duke 2001); Bartholomew Sparrow, The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire (Kansas 2006); and Gerald L. Neuman and Tomiko Brown-Nagin, eds., Reconsidering the Insular Cases: The Past and Future of American Empire (Harvard Law School, 2015). I spoke to Immerwahr recently to learn more about the shifts in how the mainland has thought about the greater United States, the widespread and at times deliberate ignorance that continues to obscure the US empire, and how climate change could force a crisis in the United States’ relationship with its overseas holdings. i124568221 |b3482600218778 |dsrnf |g- |m231208 |h14 |x2 |t2 |i7 |j18 |k190219 |n10-07-2023 20:58 |o- |a973 IMM How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr is a comprehensive and thought-provoking exploration of the often-overlooked aspects of American history—the story of the United States as an empire. Immerwahr's meticulously researched narrative challenges the conventional understanding of American history and, in doing so, sheds light on the country’s exploitation of colonies and territories on its journey to become a global superpower.