Had the horses and the chariot of fire descended to take up the patriarchs,” a New York paper wrote, “it might have been more wonderful, but not more glorious. I consider myself well read in American history, but this book opened my eyes to a surprising amount of unknown material on almost every chapter. 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. S. Army and the Philippine Army of Liberation— ended when Spain surrendered the city to the United States alone.

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 . An obscure biographical account of Boone, originally published as an appendix to a history of Kentucky, made the rounds in Europe, where it was republished and speedily translated into French and German. And each time they would say things like "those people aren't capable of self-governance" to justify it.Daniel 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. 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. Rather than putting Louisiana through the normal Northwest Ordinance procedures, Jefferson added a new initial phase, military government, and sent the U.

The slaughter continued in southern Philippines where troops, led by Teddy Roosevelt's comrade commander from Cuba, Leonard Wood, wiped out every man, woman and child of the Moros. This land grab opened the way for the establishment of sugar plantations built and run by many of the grandsons of the missionaries. In effect,” wrote James Monroe, who drafted the ordinance, it was “a colonial government similar to that which prevail’d in these States previous to the revolution.As a Canadian I am more aware of the overt imperialism of the British Empire, and the racism in past and present day Canada.

Controlling these areas would mean increased influence in the final years of the period of colonisation. Territory was often difficult to conquer and even harder to hold – whereas, modern technology, especially planes, radio communication, and more recently drones, have meant that you can build pointillist empires.How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr is a detailed and all-encompassing, but easily accessible and even occasionally entertaining read. Guamanians are fellow American citizens, which, again, is something I learned way after it was embarrassing. 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). 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.

Whilst generally objective in tone, Immerwahr is critical of the United States in several areas, especially in its neglect and treatment of the islands and their inhabitants during World War Two, such as the abandoning of the Philippines and lack of resources that were given to defend many of the islands from the Japanese (166 and 170) or the alleged cover-ups of the actions of Cornelius Rhoads in Puerto Rico (143-146). the book succeeds in its core goal: to recast American history as a history of the 'Greater United States.As Boonesborough’s settlers had discovered, the United States wasn’t the only country with claim to the land west of the Appalachians.