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title: "How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States"
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# How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of the Year | An NPR Staff Pick “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 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. Praise for How to Hide an Empire: “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 Reviews (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 Hoover’s quest for standardized screw threads, wondering what might happen next.” ―Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

Review: Great book, I'm learning a lot - What a great book! I am learning so much and seriously I can't put it down. Lying on the couch reading all this fascinating info is such a treat. The author is a great writer. He has made the history of US imperialism, and then the decline of imperialism and colonialism, not just interesting but readable and understandable for the average reader who may or may not have a good knowledge of US history. Yet it's not dumbed down either. There's nothing dry about this book. In many ways he relates this history to American life and evolution, then and now. For example, he tells us how much the explosion in plastics manufacturing and use was a result of needed supplies during WW2. I wish all writers were this talented.
Review: Comprehensive yet highly readable. A necessary and highly useful update. - I'm a professor at the University of California San Diego and I'm assigning this for a graduate class. No other book out there has the level of breadth on the history of US imperialism that this work provides. Even though it packs 400 pages of text (which might seem like a turnoff for non-academic readers), "How to Hide an Empire" is highly readable given Immerwhar's skills as a writer. Also, its length is part of what makes it awesome because it gives it the right amount of detail and scope. I could not disagree more with the person who gave this book one star. Take it from me: I've taught hundreds of college students who graduate among the best in their high school classes and they know close to nothing about the history of US settler colonialism, overseas imperialism, or US interventionism around the world. If you give University of California college students a quiz on where the US' overseas territories are, most who take it will fail (trust me, I've done it). And this is not their fault. Instead, it's a product of the US education system that fails to give students a nuanced and geographically comprehensive understanding of the oversized effect that their country has around our planet. Alleging that US imperialism in its long evolution (which this book deciphers with poignancy) has had no bearing on the destinies of its once conquered populations is as fallacious as saying that the US is to blame for every single thing that happens in Native American communities, or in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, etc. Not everything that happens in these locations and among these populations is directly connected to US expansionism, but a great deal is. A case in point is Puerto Rico's current fiscal and economic crisis. The island's political class share part of the blame for Puerto Rico's present rut. A lot of it is also due to unnatural (i.e. "natural" but human-exacerbated) disasters such as Hurricane María. However, there is no denying that the evolution of Puerto Rico's territorial status has generated a host of adverse economic conditions that US states (including an island state such as Hawaii) do not have to contend with. An association with the US has undoubtedly raised the floor of material conditions in these places, but it has also imposed an unjust glass ceiling that most people around the US either do not know about or continue to ignore. To add to those unfair economic limitations, there are political injustices regarding the lack of representation in Congress, and in the case of Am. Samoa, their lack of US citizenship. The fact that the populations in the overseas territories can't make up their mind about what status they prefer is: a) understandable given the way they have been mistreated by the US government, and b) irrelevant because what really matters is what Congress decides to do with the US' far-flung colonies, and there is no indication that Congress wants to either fully annex them or let them go because neither would be convenient to the 50 states and the political parties that run them. Instead, the status quo of modern colonial indeterminacy is what works best for the most potent political and economic groups in the US mainland. Would This book is about much more than that though. It's also a history of how and why the United States got to control so much of what happens around the world without creating additional formal colonies like the "territories" that exist in this legal limbo. Part of its goal is to show how precisely how US imperialism has been made to be more cost-effective and also more invisible. Read Immerwhar's book, and don't listen to the apologists of US imperialism which is still an active force that contradicts the US' professed values and that needs to be actively dismantled. Their attempts at discrediting this important reflect a denialism of the US' imperial realities that has endured throughout the history that this book summarizes. "How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States" is a great starting point for making the US public aware of the US' contradictions as an "empire of liberty" (a phrase once used by Thomas Jefferson to describe the US as it expanded westward beyond the original 13 colonies). It is also a necessary update to other books on this topic that are already out there, and it is likely to hold the reader's attention more given its crafty narrative prose and structure

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #1,502 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #1 in Colonialism & Post-Colonialism #2 in History & Theory of Politics #7 in World War II History (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 2,989 Reviews |

## Images

![How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91w5+zXRPJL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great book, I'm learning a lot
*by O***S on March 31, 2026*

What a great book! I am learning so much and seriously I can't put it down. Lying on the couch reading all this fascinating info is such a treat. The author is a great writer. He has made the history of US imperialism, and then the decline of imperialism and colonialism, not just interesting but readable and understandable for the average reader who may or may not have a good knowledge of US history. Yet it's not dumbed down either. There's nothing dry about this book. In many ways he relates this history to American life and evolution, then and now. For example, he tells us how much the explosion in plastics manufacturing and use was a result of needed supplies during WW2. I wish all writers were this talented.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Comprehensive yet highly readable. A necessary and highly useful update.
*by J***E on February 25, 2019*

I'm a professor at the University of California San Diego and I'm assigning this for a graduate class. No other book out there has the level of breadth on the history of US imperialism that this work provides. Even though it packs 400 pages of text (which might seem like a turnoff for non-academic readers), "How to Hide an Empire" is highly readable given Immerwhar's skills as a writer. Also, its length is part of what makes it awesome because it gives it the right amount of detail and scope. I could not disagree more with the person who gave this book one star. Take it from me: I've taught hundreds of college students who graduate among the best in their high school classes and they know close to nothing about the history of US settler colonialism, overseas imperialism, or US interventionism around the world. If you give University of California college students a quiz on where the US' overseas territories are, most who take it will fail (trust me, I've done it). And this is not their fault. Instead, it's a product of the US education system that fails to give students a nuanced and geographically comprehensive understanding of the oversized effect that their country has around our planet. Alleging that US imperialism in its long evolution (which this book deciphers with poignancy) has had no bearing on the destinies of its once conquered populations is as fallacious as saying that the US is to blame for every single thing that happens in Native American communities, or in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, etc. Not everything that happens in these locations and among these populations is directly connected to US expansionism, but a great deal is. A case in point is Puerto Rico's current fiscal and economic crisis. The island's political class share part of the blame for Puerto Rico's present rut. A lot of it is also due to unnatural (i.e. "natural" but human-exacerbated) disasters such as Hurricane María. However, there is no denying that the evolution of Puerto Rico's territorial status has generated a host of adverse economic conditions that US states (including an island state such as Hawaii) do not have to contend with. An association with the US has undoubtedly raised the floor of material conditions in these places, but it has also imposed an unjust glass ceiling that most people around the US either do not know about or continue to ignore. To add to those unfair economic limitations, there are political injustices regarding the lack of representation in Congress, and in the case of Am. Samoa, their lack of US citizenship. The fact that the populations in the overseas territories can't make up their mind about what status they prefer is: a) understandable given the way they have been mistreated by the US government, and b) irrelevant because what really matters is what Congress decides to do with the US' far-flung colonies, and there is no indication that Congress wants to either fully annex them or let them go because neither would be convenient to the 50 states and the political parties that run them. Instead, the status quo of modern colonial indeterminacy is what works best for the most potent political and economic groups in the US mainland. Would This book is about much more than that though. It's also a history of how and why the United States got to control so much of what happens around the world without creating additional formal colonies like the "territories" that exist in this legal limbo. Part of its goal is to show how precisely how US imperialism has been made to be more cost-effective and also more invisible. Read Immerwhar's book, and don't listen to the apologists of US imperialism which is still an active force that contradicts the US' professed values and that needs to be actively dismantled. Their attempts at discrediting this important reflect a denialism of the US' imperial realities that has endured throughout the history that this book summarizes. "How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States" is a great starting point for making the US public aware of the US' contradictions as an "empire of liberty" (a phrase once used by Thomas Jefferson to describe the US as it expanded westward beyond the original 13 colonies). It is also a necessary update to other books on this topic that are already out there, and it is likely to hold the reader's attention more given its crafty narrative prose and structure

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Entire American Footprint
*by P***N on September 15, 2019*

Professor Daniel Immerwahr has written a book that seeks to address Americans’ critical lack of knowledge of the country’s overseas territories and military installations, a lack is not surprising since many college students seem severely lacking in knowledge of their own home states, much less distant places. Immerwahr has said that the problem is not geographical, but if a study he cites that indicates that the people who are under thirty are less likely than older respondents to know that Puerto Ricans are American citizens is truly representative, the decline of map reading skills may well be associated with the rise of GPS devices and smart phones, coupled with the tendency to see distances in term of the time it takes to get somewhere rather than miles, may be a strong contributor to the problem. (Immerwahr does not seem to fault teachers and his fellow professors who are including decreasing amounts of content relating to the United States’ own colonial roots in their courses without replacing it with information about the territories, let alone military bases abroad.) Immerwahr recounts the United States’ acquisition of territories and military bases largely through claim, purchase, and war. He devotes a particularly large amount of text to describing, military operations associated with acquiring and maintaining colonies and employing military bases. While this is important, at times the detail of the descriptions impedes the flow of the narrative and detracts from the subject. A large section on the effects on colonies of post-World War II developments in transportation, communication, and technological standardization seems more relevant to the empires of such colonial powers as Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands, which saw their colonies as being of economic value, than to the United States, which Immerwahr indicates saw its territories as more of a burden than an opportunity, with, perhaps, the exception of the guano islands, which were largely abandoned when guano was no longer needed for American agriculture. One difficulty with the book is its major focus on the Puerto Rico, the territory about which Americans probably know the most, at the expense of the Pacific territories such as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, of which many are probably unaware. The author might also have devoted more attention to the currently held territories than he does to the former territory of the Philippines. Immerwahr’s inclusion of U. S. military bases abroad as part of the United State “empire,” will surprise many, but he makes an excellent argument for their inclusion. More information about the justification for the approximately 800 foreign bases, some of which are very close together, and the means by which the U. S. government has convinced countries to allow it to station its troops on their soil might also have been helpful in understanding the large United States footprint on the world. One cannot criticize the author for omitting something that he did not intend to include in the first place, but if there is another edition of How to Hide and Empire, it might be appropriate to include at least an appendix about Native American communities at least two of which have, by treaty, rights to have non-voting members of the House of Representatives in the same way that the U. S. territories do. Several of these communities also have reservations that are self-governing and often exempt from state laws regarding taxes and/or gaming; one reservation (the Akwesasne in Northern New York) straddles the U.S.-Canadian border, creating concerns about cross-border transportation of both people and goods (especially cigarettes, but also including drugs and alcohol) for both countries. This work has the potential to be an important book, but many potential readers will find its length daunting (501 pages; 399 pages of text). An easily condensed version would make excellent supplemental reading for classes in such disciplines as United States History, International Relations, Political Science and Constitutional Law. A shorter version might also attract a larger readership among the general public, which the book deserves. The title is highly recommended Those whose interest in the territories is piqued by How to Hide an Empire might want to read The Not- Quite States of America by Doug Mack, an account of life in the U. S. territories in the twenty-first century, and visit the website www.equalrightsnow.org, which seeks to inform the public about the territories and advocate for the rights of the approximately four million people who live in them.

## Frequently Bought Together

- How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States
- A People's History of the United States
- On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

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