How to Hide an Empire Pdf

ISBN: 0374172145
Title: How to Hide an Empire Pdf A History of the Greater United States
Author: Daniel Immerwahr
Published Date: 2019-02-19
Page: 560

"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 Hoover’s quest for standardized screw threads, wondering what might happen next." ―Jennifer Szalai, New York Times "[Immerwahr's] book is written in 22 brisk chapters, full of lively characters, dollops of humor, and surprising facts . . . It entertains and means to do so. But its purpose is quite serious: to shift the way that people think about American history . . . Immerwahr convincingly argues that . . . the United States replaced colonies with chemistry,' and partially 'substituted technology for territory.' It is a powerful and illuminating economic argument . . . the book succeeds in its core goal: to recast American history as a history of the 'Greater United States.' . . . deserves a wide audience, and it should find one." ―Patrick Iber, The New Republic "Consistently both startling and absorbing . . . Immerwahr vividly retells the early formation of the [United States], the consolidation of its overseas territory, and the postwar perfection of its 'pointillist' global empire, which extends influence through a vast constellation of tiny footprints." ―Harper's "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) "There are many histories of American expansionism. How to Hide an Empire renders them all obsolete. It is brilliantly conceived, utterly original, and immensely entertaining ― simultaneously vivid, sardonic and deadly serious." ―Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Twilight of the American Century"How to Hide an Empire is a breakthrough, for both Daniel Immerwahr and our collective understanding of America’s role in the world. His narrative of the rise of our colonial empire outside North America, and then our surprising pivot from colonization to globalization after World War II, is enthralling in the telling ― and troubling for anyone pondering our nation’s past and future. The result is a book for citizens and scholars alike." ―Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal Age"This book changes our understanding of the fundamental character of the United States as a presence in world history. By focusing on the processes by which Americans acquired, controlled, and were affected by territory, Daniel Immerwahr shows that the United States was not just another 'empire,' but was a highly distinctive one the dimensions of which have been largely ignored." ―David A. Hollinger, author of Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World but Changed America “Historian Immerwahr argues in this substantial work that . . . for more than two centuries the U.S. has been . . . a kind of empire . . . made up of territories . . . barely acknowledged in popular conceptions of the country . . . This insightful, excellent book, with its new perspective on an element of American history that is almost totally excluded from mainstream education and knowledge, should be required reading for those on the mainland." ―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "President Jefferson imagined an 'Empire of Liberty' . . . [but] Immerwahr illustrates how American territorial expansion included control over and governance of millions of Spanish speakers and various Indian tribes who had to be forcefully subdued . . . a useful and informative work, since many of these overseas territories remain under our governance." ―Booklist "In How to Hide an Empire, Immerwahr chronicles the history of . . . ‘large colonies and pinprick islands’. The result is a whimsical-serious work: a deft disquisition on America, and America in the world, with a raconteur’s touch and keen sense of the absurd." ―Stephen Phillips, The Spectator"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 EconomistDaniel Immerwahr is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University and the author of Thinking Small: The United States and the Lure of Community Development, which won the Organization of American Historians’ Merle Curti Award. He has written for Slate, n+1, Dissent, and other publications.

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.

All over the board This book is an easy read, as the author makes each part of it interesting in a relatable way. It’s also a difficult read, as the first half is a litany of mistreatment of non-whites in our territories by our government, most of the examples not well-known (or even known) by those that study American history.The 2nd half of the book branches off into a long discussion of WWII and how the US/English took over the world in almost all aspects of life. Basically empire building without building an actual empire. A fascinating read, but a little left-leaning.Blaming America Since 1950, Puerto Rico’s arrested political development was caused less by U.S. imperialism than the island territory’s failed “autonomy” experimentMore empty cliches and misplaced historical guilt“How to Hide an Empire” by Daniel Immerwahr holds few surprises or new and original insights on the history of U.S. territories.The author charts in a less compelling and competent narrative much of the same historical landscape explored in "The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War" by James Bradley (“Flags of Our Fathers,” “Flyboys”).Dr. Immerwahr hails from University of California at Berkley, before joining faculty of Northwestern University.What we have here is American territorial history as re-imagined by yet another opportunistic historian, marketing one more predictable reiteration of the worn-out narrative of historical guilt written a thousand times.As such, the book is old wine in a new bottle that has gone bad. It does not require a discerning palate to be left with a bad taste in one’s mouth, after sampling not the real America but the author’s own ideological fantasies.In grandiloquent verbosity Immerwahr impudently scolds America for the moral failures of territorial traditions and policies in which he sees only evil as real, and anything good as chauvinistic American self-deception.What the author fails to recognize is that the very title of the book articulates a false premise. The truth is America's history of territorial rule - including its imperialist experimentation - is not “hidden" at all.Rather, the sweeping historical spectacle of America’s anti-colonial heritage, along with conspicuous contradictions rising from both lawful territory acquisition and annexation of new territories by stealth and intrigue, is an open book for all the world to see.All that was good and evil about our “manifest destiny” extending national borders was if nothing else manifest to all the world.Few topics have been studied and debated more transparently in real time or retrospectively than the 19th century story of our nation’s continental expansion. That was followed in the 20th century by advent of overseas possessions and the burdens as well as benefits of empire.The expansion of American interests beyond contiguous borders enabled the U.S. to project power into every corner of the world. It also induced an optimism both naive and arrogant.The presumption was the U.S could pragmatically manage cross cultural relations with foreign peoples in overseas territories any better than it had in the case of American native tribal peoples.In the well-trodden paths of scholarship on these topics, “How to Hide and Empire” adds value but no breakthrough from familiar paradigms of baseline scholarship the likes of Whitney Perkins’ 1962 book “Denial of Empire: The United States and Its Dependencies.”Simply stated, “How to Hide an Empire” does not attain an intellectually honest assessment of the balance between national successes and failures in the field of territorial rule.This book fails accurately to reflect both the triumphs and reversals of American interests and national values in territories temporarily under provisional rather than permanent rule by the United States.Little if any value for Puerto RicoThe author repeats as if a great revelation the tirelessly cited decades old axiom that “Barely half of mainland Americans know Puerto Ricans are fellow citizens.”This was already a political and social cliche in 1957 when the dancing chorus in West Side Story sang “Nobody in America knowns Puerto Rico is in America.”What’s new since the 1950’s is that there are six million Puerto Ricans in the 50 states, and three million in the territory, and every politician in America knows Puerto Ricans are a swing vote that can decide local and national elections.No other territory has remained in political status limbo after conferral of U.S. citizenship long enough to acquire that degree of democratic political power before admission to the union.Unfortunately, especially as it relates to Puerto Rico, the premise of “How to Hide and Empire” is at best misdirected, at worst ideologically biased.Among the reasons why this is true, the majority of those “fellow citizens” in Puerto Rico have now voted twice for America by choosing statehood as their preferred future political status.No one understands what is wrong, imperfect, hypocritical and just plain bad about U.S. territorial law and policy better than Puerto Ricans.Yet, once the ideological haze of historical revisionism and “autonomist” doctrines that clouded the real choice between independent nationhood and statehood dissipated, the people who know the realities of the real status options best chose statehood.Ethnic identity politics and Puerto RicoPuerto Rico’s relationship with the U.S. can be understood only by focusing on symptoms of American racism and imperialism, including medical science practices that violated human rights.Thus, as with so many books by other authors, this work represents one more writer who thinks he is the first to truly understand the moral depravity of American imperialism. On that basis the writer believes what is most true about Puerto Rico is that its non-Anglo Saxon people have been “sidelined in the national imagination.”However, defining Puerto Rican identity simplistically as a non-Anglo Saxon community is itself a race based misconception. More Puerto Ricans identify as white people of European descent (Spain) than those who identify being of Caribe or African descent.As to being “sidelined” in the life of the nation, tell that to the Republican and Democratic candidates for Governor and the U.S. Senate from the powerhouse swing state of Florida. Every one left or right has come out in support of statehood or whatever other status the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico choose, in order to win the crucial Puerto Rico vote.Ask Puerto Rican Luis Fonsi if he feels sidelined after his song “Despacito” topped American charts in 2017, and has been remixed in dozens of languages worldwide. Tell Lin-Manuel Miranda he was sidelined, despite his play “Hamilton” winning recognition for reviving American political identity for all races and creeds in our nation.To the extent Puerto Rico’s potential for greater development has been impeded, it is because the anti-statehood, anti-independence “autonomy” party sidelined itself and the island based on bad legal and political advice.The only sense in which the people of Puerto Rico have been “sidelined in the national imagination” is due to a 70-year failed social engineering experiment. It began when New Deal left wing collectivist crusaders in Washington and San Juan were treating Puerto Rico as a laboratory for testing impacts of socialism.The hypothesis of that experiment was Puerto Rico could adopt a new status with features of both statehood and independence. Embracing federal subsidized crony capitalism was a given to attain a model for an unprecedented political economy that would be the "best of both worlds."If Puerto Rico had not become beguiled by autonomist ideology in the late 1940’s, and instead joined Alaska and Hawaii in seeking statehood, it could have become a state in the same decade. Similarly, if Puerto Rico had joined the U.S. territory of the Philippine Islands in seeking true sovereign national independence in would have been attained before 1960.American tools of democracyWhat this writer does not want to admit is that in America the solution to racism and exploitative imperialism is our constitutionalism based on equal rights of national and state citizenship. It is when we the people give consent of the governed to just government that America becomes more perfect instead of less perfect.The U.S. statehood model makes freedom and justice possible through equal voting rights in federal elections for full representation in the Congress and the Electoral College. Under Article I, Section 2 and Article II, Section I only national citizenship coupled with state citizenship secures equal voting rights and representation in the process for government by consent.There never has been a better political system than the American model of constitutional federalism. That’s why the United Nations Charter and all major international conventions on political rights are based on the Declaration Independence and the U.S. Constitution.All cultures and societies and nations are racist and exploit other countries to promote their national self-interest. But the U.S. has the most advanced process to correct injustice and preserve an ordered scheme of liberty.Arguably the U.S. should not even offer statutory citizenship until it determines to it will offer full constitutional citizenship through statehood or integration into an existing state.Of the 9 million U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico alive today, 6 million have chosen equality by going to live under statehood. A majority of the 3 million remaining in the colony have voted to stay and bring statehood to their homeland.For each of the 32 terriers that became states, admission finally happened when the only thing worse than statehood was to deny it. The same was true for the four smaller states formed out of large states. Puerto Rico is larger than Rhode Island, Delaware and Connecticut, with a population larger than 20 states.Statehood historical inevitableIn that historical context, “How to Hide an Empire” is simply historically wrong about territorial invisibility. The world certainly knows Guam is a front line strategic military asset since the leader of North Korea threatened to vaporize it.Puerto Rico and all small U.S. territories are still making a U.S. taxpayer subsidized trek to the U.N. every year to denounce U.S. colonialism in its territories.Yet, this new book and its review in the NYT misleadingly suggests America’s territories are invisible colonies. In doing so this book may be compelling and fun to read, but we grow weary of the idea that being more perfect than any other nations in most respects somehow doesn’t matter because we remain in some respects still imperfect.Our constitutionalism brings out the best in us despite our worst impulses and instincts. Alexis de Tocqueville had it right back then when we were far more imperfect, and it is still true. The America that we want and the America that is remain on balance something we should be proud of most if not all the time, not something we should be ashamed about.The promise of the Northwest Ordinance tradition based on equal citizenship through statehood was not broken during the continental expansion into the west.All or part of 15 states were formed when the U.S. acquired foreign territories under the Louisiana Purchase, and granted citizenship to the non-English speaking populations. Another 17 states were formed from the territories the included the original Northwest Territories of the Ohio Valley, the mid-west and eventually the west coast.The westward movement led to a clash of cultures and eventually a clash of arms between the descendants of European settlers and Native American tribal peoples who remained non-citizens. As noted below, “How to Hide and Empire” also oversimplifies that saga as well.It was not until after 1900 that the U.S. again acquired foreign territories with non-citizens, including the vast Philippines and populous Puerto Rico. As it turned out, the utter brutality of American experience in the Philippines led to that territory’s independence, but may also have led to denial of statehood to Puerto Rico.It is a complex story that “How to Hide an Empire” gets all wrong. Starting with the wildly incorrect assertion that military actions in Philippines were “the single most destructive event ever to take place on American soil.”Really? Ever heard of the American Revolutionary War, which led to the advent of U.S. citizenship in a republic? What about the Civil war in which 1 million died to extend U.S. citizenship or all, including former slaves?It is true that the U.S. Army killed Filipinos by the tens of thousands, between 100,000 and 200,000 by some estimates. The insurgency was one reason why the U.S. imperial territorial viceroy, Gov. William Howard Taft, later would oppose full integration through statehood after U.S. citizenship to the non-citizens of the territory.That led to the denial of citizenship in 1916, and a policy leading to independence in 1946. Unfortunately, when Taft went on to become President and then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Sates (SCOTUS), he had become convinced the U.S. should not admit any more non-Anglo Saxon populated territories to the union.That opposition to placing Puerto Rico on the path to statehood was informed by the fact he lost his bid for re-election to a second term as President, in part because of a scandal in his administration’s failed oversight of public administration and finances as well as business syndicates in the territory of Alaska.Like Hawaii and unlike the Philippines, in its wisdom Congress had granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Rico in 1917.Citizenship would lead Hawaii and Alaska into statehood, as it did for 32 other territories. So Taft simply suspended the NWO model in the case of U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico by judicial edict.In the 1922 case of Balzac v. Puerto Rico, written by Taft, the SCOTUS held statutory “U.S. citizenship” is not constitutional citizenship, unless Congress declares a policy offering terms for Puerto Rico to seek incorporation and statehood. That denial of a path to equal citizenship through statehood gave rise to the “have it both ways” autonomy movement in the late 1940’s.That lasted until SCOTUS ruled in 2016 that “commonwealth” was not a sovereign status. This was announced and followed by majority vote for statehood in 2017.How imperfect is America’s more perfect union?The U.S. remains the least imperialist and least racist of any nation past or present, despite our tendency sometimes to practice racism and imperialism.All nations practice racism and imperialism to the extent its serves national self-interest and the ability to do so exists.The British started slavery in America, the citizens of the U.S. ended it, at the price of a million lives.Next we saw Native American tribes suffer due to multi-cultural non-adaptability leading to violent conflict. America allowed itself falsely to be made the poster child for tragic conquest of indigenous peoples.But wait a minute! Didn’t the Northwest Ordinance set aside huge territory larger than multiple mid-western states for the tribal nations?Why didn’t that work out? Well, for starters, several tribes including Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, imported African slaves as cheap labor on their farms in the “Indian Territory.”The only thing worse than being a slave owned by white plantation society in the south was to be an African slave of Native American tribes in the tribal territories.Did tribes President Jackson drove west had conquered and stolen the lands from which the new Americans drove them. In many cases, the prevailing tribes had not driven the conquered tribes west, but rather killed them.The only thing worse than what the Europeans did to Native American tribes was what they were doing to each other before the Europeans arrived.It was the Europeans who established a new social order where after decades tribal genocide and beheading of tyrants were no longer necessary. The Northwest Ordinance provisions creating an “Indian Territory” for recognized tribal nations may have been a trail of tears for the tribes, but it was a path forward.Then a territorial law case in the SCOTUS applied the U.S. Constitution to Kansas before it was a state, and declared that slavery had to be allowed in states or abolished in all states. That Dred Scott 1847 ruling held the Missouri Compromise creating one law in some states and another law in the rest, and that is unconstitutional.That meant that existing slave laws had to be enforced uniformly until slavery was abolished. There was no middle ground or third path, and that meant civil war.To truly understand American territorial history and the acculturation of non-Anglo Saxon peoples, it should at least be recognized that the slave holding tribes joined the rebellion on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and inflicted terror on the military and civilian population loyal to the Union.That contributed to the savagery of the Indian Wars that followed the Civil War. Did veterans on both sides including tribal warriors play out the tragedy of Civil War blood grudges on the western frontiers?It is not insignificant that tribal peoples who sided with the Confederacy and U.S. Army troops who fought in the Civil War also became combatants in the Indian Wars where 40,000 tribal people died and 15,000 U.S. Army and civilian loyalists to the Union were killed.It is in the context of the collapse of the Missouri Compromise and the political balance it created through tandem admissions of slave and free territories into the Union that we find evidence requiring more critical thinking.Specifically, it can be argued division among territories that sided with the Union or the Confederacy was a powerful force driving the “Manifest Destiny” destiny doctrine both North and South of the Mason-Dixon line that separated slave and free territories and states.For most Americans at the time, conversion of territories into states was as much if not more about preservation or abolition of slavery as it was about territorial expansionism.Blaming everything bad on America denies anything goodWhy is America singled out as a racist and imperialist nation, when Spain imposed tyrannical colonial rule on Puerto Rico for three centuries, exterminated indigenous peoples far more aggressively than the Americans, and practiced slavery in Puerto Rico after slavery was ended in the USA?Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s denial that America is an imperial power. He of course wrong.But what he should have said was American imperialism strikes a batter balance between national self-interest and nation building than the imperialism of any other nation.That would have been an accurate statement as to all nations with the ability to project sovereign power over peoples and territories not yet able to project sovereign power over their own homelands.The U.S. is the least racist and the most just nation in the history of the world. When you think of all the bad things the U.S. has done at home and abroad, that may not be saying much for the rest of the nations in the world, past or present.But that is where a realistic and honest discussion of what it right and wrong, good and bad about American territorial and imperialist policy can begin.Wonderful Read. This book provides insight into today’s headlines with riveting stories from our past, many of which I had never heard before. It educates, but is never preachy or dull. I couldn’t put it down.

An Introduction to White History pdf

The Civil War pdf

Freedom from Fear pdf

On A Burning Deck. The Road to Akron. pdf

Kings of Texas pdf

The Great Book of Hawaii pdf

The Great Book of Ohio pdf

Tags: 0374172145 pdf,How to Hide an Empire pdf,A History of the Greater United States pdf,Daniel Immerwahr,How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States,Farrar, Straus and Giroux,0374172145,United States - Colonial question,United States - Territories and possessions - History,United States;Colonial question.,United States;Territories and possessions;History.,010101 FSG Cloth,COLONIES AND COLONIZATION,Colonialism & Post-Colonialism,GENERAL,General Adult,HISTORY / Military / United States,HISTORY / United States / General,History,History/American,History/Military - United States,Military / United States,Non-Fiction,POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism,Political Science/Colonialism & Post-Colonialism,Political Science/Imperialism,UNITED STATES HISTORY (SPECIFIC ASPECTS),United States,best american history books; history of the united states; us history; empire; imperialism; colonialism; us imperialism; american history; political science books; politics; us politics; geopolitics; globalization; american empire; Philippines; Puerto Rico; us territories; world history; modern history; cultural critique; wwii history,best american history books; history of the united states; us history; empire; imperialism; colonialism; us imperialism; american history; political science books; politics; us politics; geopolitics; globalization; american empire; Philippines; Puerto Rico; us territories; world history; modern history; wwii history; cultural critique,Colonialism & Post-Colonialism,HISTORY / Military / United States,HISTORY / United States / General,History/Military - United States,Military / United States,POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism,Political Science/Colonialism & Post-Colonialism,Political Science/Imperialism

s.igisigra851