Name: How to Hide an Empire
Rating: 4.482758620689655 (29 reviews)
ISBN: 9781509818488

DANIEL. IMMERWAHR

How to Hide an Empire

nhu ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹

Consider how similar events played out more recently. On August 7, 1998, al-Qaeda launched simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Hundreds died (mostly Africans), and thousands were wounded. But though those embassies were outposts of the United States, there was little public sense that the country itself had been harmed. It would take another set of simultaneous attacks three years later, on New York City and Washington, D.C., to provoke an all-out war.

“in war, truth is the first casualty”

So on the morning of his speech, he made another edit. He changed it so that the Japanese squadrons had bombed not the “island of Oahu,” but the “American island of Oahu.” Damage there, Roosevelt continued, had been done to “American naval and military forces,” and “very many American lives” had been lost.

Empire isn’t just landgrabs, though. What do you call the subordination of African Americans? In W.E.B. Du Bois’s eyes, black people in the United States looked more like colonized subjects than like citizens. Many other black thinkers, including Malcolm X and the leaders of the Black Panthers, have agreed.

It wasn’t until I traveled to Manila, researching something else entirely, that it clicked. To get to the archives, I’d travel by “jeepney,” a transit system originally based on repurposed U.S. Army jeeps. I boarded in a section of Metro Manila where the streets are named after U.S. colleges (Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Notre Dame), states and cities (Chicago, Detroit, New York, Brooklyn, Denver), and presidents (Jefferson, Van Buren, Roosevelt, Eisenhower). When I’d arrive at my destination, the Ateneo de Manila University, one of the country’s most prestigious schools, I’d hear students speaking what sounded to my Pennsylvanian ears to be virtually unaccented English.

Empire might be hard to make out from the mainland, but from the sites of colonial rule themselves, it’s impossible to miss.

Collectively, these technologies weaned the United States off the familiar model of formal empire. They replaced colonization with globalization.

Globalization is a fashionable word, and it’s easy to speak of it in vague terms—to talk of increasingly better technologies drawing a disparate world together. But those new technologies didn’t just crop up. Many were developed by the U.S. military in a short burst of time in the 1940s, with the goal of giving the United States a new relationship to territory. Dramatically, and in just a few years, the military built a world-spanning logistical network that was startling in how little it depended on colonies. It was also startling in how much it centered the world’s trade, transport, and communication on one country, the United States.

A country that had started out resembling the British Empire, with centers of power in the East and subordinated territory in the West, had been turned by the population bomb into something different: a violently expansive empire of settlers, feeding on land and displacing everything in its path.

Another part of the problem was that the government simply didn’t trust its own subjects. A full defense of the Pacific would require arming the populations of Hawai‘i, American Samoa, Guam, the Philippines, and Alaska. Yet war planners hesitated to do that; they seemed as concerned with defending the United States against those colonized peoples as defending it with them. 

Daniel Immerwahr

'Wry, readable and often astonishing... A provocative and absorbing history of the United States' New York Times The United States denies having dreams of empire. We know America has spread its money, language and culture across the world, but we still think of it as a contained territory, framed by Canada above, Mexico below, and oceans either side. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the story of the United States outside the United States – from nineteenth-century conquests like Alaska and Puerto Rico to the catalogue of islands, archipelagos and military bases dotted around the globe. Full of surprises and previously forgotten episodes, this fascinating book casts America’s history, and its present, in a revealing new light.

A Short History of the Greater United States

Andrew John Kinney

A reader's view of this book will depend on how much history they know and how much they have traveled. I already knew quite a bit of the history recounted in the book, though there were many tidbits that were new to me, such as the history of the Guano Islands, Ernest Gruening, and the role of Albizu in Puerto Rico. I enjoyed the section on the development of standards such as ISO and ANSI, because those have directly impacted my career, though I suppose most sane people would find those parts boring. But the broader story was not a surprise to me, because I served in many of the "points of empire" detailed in the book. Vieques Island; tiny bases in Korea; rough camps in Honduras; Thule, Greenland; small kasernes in Germany? Been there. I get his central point, but what the author misses is how the privileged status of the United States is being frittered away by the current leadership of the country, either through a complete ignorance of what that privilege is based on, or by a self-interestedness blind to all else. Or both; it's probably both. Example: the US Dollar is the reserve currency of the world, and that status confers enormous advantages on the US in terms of its cost of borrowing, just to name one benefit. Yet political idiots have threatened to not pay the US debt, thus triggering a downgrade of US T-bills. Second example: the willful disruption and degradation of international treaties and relationships, all of which are beneficial in some way to the US, and are often very one-sided in favor of the US. Again, whether this is the result of stupidity or from some nefarious motive, I don't know. 

The discussion of the treatment of Native Americans was eye-opening in parts. My grandparents lived in Alaska, so I had some exposure to the treatment of native peoples there, though the WW2 concentration camps for Aleuts and Inuits was a shock. The story of the Cherokees is well-known, but it's still disconcerting to hear the condensed narrative of that series of betrayals. The treatment of the Philippines is hard to explain away.

So if one is not aware of the arc of America's empire-building over the last 150 years, do read this. But I do not accept, as the author seems to imply, that it was all sordid business. The defeat of Hitler was not, the defeat of the murderous Tojo Regime was not, the rescue of the South Koreans from the tender mercies of Kim il-Sung was not, in my opinion. But it is a fair point that the US has been, too often, on the wrong side of history, notably in our own backyard in the Caribbean, Central and South America. But the case is not irredeemable. Dealing with other countries fairly and morally, and with respect for past shared sacrifices is a hobby that can be taken up at any time. Though don't hold your breath for the current president to do so.

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 space. 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.

A History of the Greater United States

Vivian

Must-read if you're interested in American history. US was and still is an empire yet people rarely see it that way. I had no idea that Philippines was a US colony from 1898 to 1946, and unethical medical experiments were routinely conducted on the colonial subjects in Puerto Rico. Laborers in US territory Northern Mariana Islands were exploited as late as 2007 due to holes in regulations between US "territory" and US "mainland". Many such obscure historical facts were described in the first half of the book. Then the second half explains that with the advancement in science and technology after WWII, imperialism takes the form of globalization, where powerful countries project their influence through military bases, oversea territories, and trades instead of possessing physical colonies. American standards became the norm all over the world while English was destined as the global language. All of these have no doubt given US many privileges and shaped the world we know today.

The "dark" history of US does not negate its extraordinary rise and accomplishments. But it's imperative to know both sides of history, especially in the current political climate where US keeps asserting itself as the egalitarian democracy beacon. A check in the mirror would do some good.

Caitlin Snyder

Sahi K

Surely a 4.5 but just fell short of a full 5 star rating.

I’m not someone who knows much of American history - we obviously didn’t need to study it in school and whatever I’ve gleaned through in the past few years has been by watching documentaries, tv shows or reading fiction inspired by true historical events. Even in those cases, I have probably read more about WWII because the Holocaust is one of the most horrific events that I’ve come to know perpetrated by design by one evil man. As far as American history is concerned, I know about important events and key figures related to the Civil war and the civil rights movement, but not much more. So, why did I pick up this book? I have no idea. I just read one glowing review on Goodreads and decided to give it a try. And whatever I was expecting it to be, it surpassed all my expectations.

The one common refrain we always hear is that history books are boring. And this book is most definitely written by a history professor. But boring it ain’t. While I hoped that it would be interesting enough that I can read it slowly over the course of a week or two, I didn’t expect it to suck me into it so wholly that I managed to complete in just three sittings. The author writes in such an accessible manner with lots of anecdotes and dry humor that you can’t help but enjoy it. Particularly, the first half to two thirds of the book is very engrossing - the details of the events the author is describing are truly horrific and I was frankly appalled that I didn’t know any of it. However, what is more appalling is that this actual history of the United States is nowhere taught in its schools. Americans might very well proclaim (and even believe in their hearts) that they are a nation built out of anti-imperialist notions, and by virtue of literally erasing all this history from their textbooks ensure that this image stays intact, but the fact is, US has been an empire and colonized millions of people since the late 19th century and continues to do so till this day. 

There are many important chapters of history that the author decides to talk about, but the two which get most page time are Philippines and Puerto Rico. While I had some idea that PR is still a colony of the US and has no representation in Congress while being very dependent on federal aid, I knew nothing about how it came to be so. And I literally had no clue that Philippines, a country in Asia was colonized by the US for around 47 years. The years of oppression, the wars and massacres that were raged to quell any rebellions and exploitation of resources reads like any standard imperial fare (I’ve read enough about British in India to see the similarities) - it’s just surprising to read because we never talk about US in the same vein as British while discussing colonization. 

What was truly horrific and revolting to read about was the illegal and unethical experiments that so-called pioneers of American medicine conducted on their colonial subjects, with no regard for their consent because they didn’t care about “those” people. Forced sterilizations, experimenting the initial versions of the birth control pill (with highly adverse side effects), deliberately not giving medicine to some patients to determine how they fare, and airdropping mustard gas on thousands of people to understand its effect on humans - these are not so dissimilar to what Josef Mengele did - but while one is the infamous Angel of Death, other is the father of Chemotherapy. I guess this is what it means when we say history is written by the victors. 

The latter half of the book deals more with how the nature of imperialism changed after WWII and technological advances made during the war enabled it to take the form of globalization. I was utterly fascinated by the chapters about how American standards became the norm across the world in every field and ISO came to be, and the rise of English as the global connecting language. Some might think this was actually good and only happened because of “free market capitalism” and not forced on anybody, but when one country controls more than 60% of the manufacturing economy of the world, the leverage it holds is enormous and what other countries do to appease it is just pragmatism and not enthusiastic acceptance. One very stark fact that reiterates it is that while all countries across the world decided to adhere to many US standards, US still separates itself from everyone by refusing to use the metric system. This may also seem trivial to Americans because they are used to believing they are the best at everything, but as an Indian, the fear of losing our languages and ultimately our culture to the hegemony of English isn’t really that unfounded. 

The last section of the book about the pointillist empire is where I lost interest a little. The author rightly points out that the more than 800 US bases across the world make it an empire even now, albeit just a different kind but he doesn’t go into much detail. We only get to know a little about the military bases in Japan as well the initial ones in Saudi Arabia, which eventually and very unexpectedly led to the rise of Japan as a tough industrial competitor to the US; and the accumulation of wealth by the bin Laden family and then using it to fight against the US which facilitated that wealth in the first place. The author also points out little known facts about how Guantanamo bay came to be which eventually led to its use as a detention facility, as well as the loopholes in law which led to exploitation of labor in Northern Mariana Islands even though they were by right US citizens. The author refrains from going into much detail about any of these though, and also only makes cursory references to all the wars the US has fought in after WWII. I guess this was done to limit the size of an already big book, but it just gave a feeling that some important events were glossed over. 

Wow did I go on quite a rant in this review. I didn’t even realize I had so much to say. To conclude, I just want to mention that this book is well written and very readable for anyone, whether you know anything about US history or not. Even if you usually find history books boring, I promise that this is very engrossing and enjoyable, mostly due to the author’s excellent storytelling skills. And if you are someone who is interested to know more about the usually hidden and unknown parts of American history, you should definitely give this a try. It’ll surely surprise you. And I think it’s important to know this history but ignorance of it can only lead to mistakes in the future.

How to Hide an Empire

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