Wick Welker's Reviews > How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

The United States is in everyone's backyard.

This is a sweeping and scholarly work which sticks to its guns to prove a very poignant fact about the United States: it was created as an empire and continues to operate as such today. In How to Hide an Empire, Immerwahr provides a jaw-dropping account of how the American empire was formed soon after WWII and how that empire has taken on a modern day transformation where it sells itself as an egalitarian democracy but is actually a pointillistic empire spread across the world.

First we explore the vast American territories that America controlled around WWII. We commemorate the Peal Harbor bombings but all seem to forget that this was a coordinated attack on other American territories that day, namely the Philippines and other territories. We don't commemorate those attacks because we don't consider those territories to be American soil--only they were. America had territory in the Philippines, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii, Alaska, American Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. After WWII, these territories were literally treated as social, medical and architectural testing grounds with the fraction of the oversight if they occurred on the mainland. The Philippines had a white apartheid where American business ventures went to boom and die with no benefit to the native population. 1.7 M people died in WWII in the Philippines, the majority were Filipino. This is the worst death toll on American soil ever. Ever heard of it? I hadn't. The American empire was interested in the land of these territories but not the people of these territories. Sounds very familiar today.

When it was discovered that hook worm was widespread in Puerto Rico, it was suggested that the high population density of such a "degenerate" people was the cause and that a culling of the population was the only cure. However, anti-parasites were tested on the people with no oversight, including blatant genocide by physicians, and the medication was created of which all benefited. From brith control to female sterilization, these crimes were perpetrated on Puerto Ricans of which we all benefit today. Immerwahr goes on and on with the atrocious accounts of grave crimes against humanity that occurred in all of these territories: martial law in Hawaii where executions occurred regularly, Japanese interment camps in Alaska with zero oversight. Examples abound.

And then something curious happened after WWII: for the first time in the history of the world, a world power gave up its territories. They were "returned" to their native people. Why? The answer is that a modern global empire looks very different today than ancient times. While America gave up land, it strung itself up with military bases absolutely everywhere. This completely changed warfare. American was suddenly in everyone's back door prompting social upheaval and recalcitrance everywhere. America found it too costly to its mainland empire to maintain territories while denying representation to the sovereign population and squashing rebellions was (like in Puerto Rico and elsewhere). Thus America became the pointillist empire.

Vast development in material technology, like plastic and rubber, enabled America to no longer be resource driven and released their grasp on most of these territories while still having bases there to mobilize and continue its global warcraft. Aviation completely changed the law of geo politics. The US maintained its empire by codifying standards for everything--from screws to instruments and to stop signs. The greatest achievement of the American empire is ensuring that English is the dominant language of politics, coding, the internet and academia. America has achieved an astonishing cultural empire that the world has never before seen.

9/11 did not happen in a vacuum. The naive question: "why do they hate us?" has a simple answer: it was retaliation for American pointillistic empire strung across the Middle East. There are 30 extra national Non-US bases in the world. There are 800 American bases around the world. <-Read that again.

This book was phenomenal. Well researched and incredibly accurate. I learned a ton. Highly recommend.

Similar books I'd recommend:
Confessions of an Economic Hitman
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The Jakarta Method
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