You’re extremely entertained by Cookie Monster and then it’s over and you sit up and say, “Oh snap, I know how to count now!

Squatters who rushed over the mountains were impossible to govern, and the wars they inevitably started were expensive to fight. I hadn’t realised that there is a law requiring the flag to change if a new state is incorporated into the union. Immerwahr provides a riveting breakdown of the latest phase of American empire — the post–World War II era. Controlling these areas would mean increased influence in the final years of the period of colonisation. The government accepted control of its first territory in 1784, when Virginia gave up its claims to a large swath of land north of the Ohio River.While I expect most know that Puerto Ricans are US citizens (even if they didn’t before Hurricane Maria) do they know that (or more importantly why) the independence movement activists shot at President Truman and later shot into the House of Representatives wounding 5 congressmen in 1954. In a military coup, sponsored by the sugar barons, the local government was overthrown and the king forced out.

It begins with the first examples of westward expansion by Daniel Boone past the Appalachian Mountains and the line drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and ends with how the history of empire affected the US under President Trump.From brith control to female sterilization, these crimes were perpetrated on Puerto Ricans of which we all benefit today. 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. 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. 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. He details shockingly that many ‘inhabitants of the US Empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed and tortured’ (19) but due to the well-known logo map skewing public perception, and the focus on the US mainland by US politicians and history-makers what the territories ‘haven’t been, by and large, is seen’ (19).

How is it ‘hidden’ from history and the inevitable criticism that comes along with any discussion of the history of imperialism across the world? Guamanians are fellow American citizens, which, again, is something I learned way after it was embarrassing. 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. Instead, the status quo of modern colonial indeterminacy is what works best for the most potent political and economic groups in the US mainland. 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.Their attempts at discrediting this important reflect a denialism of the US' imperial realities that has endured throughout the history that this book summarizes. Rather, it reshuffled its imperial portfolio, divesting itself of large colonies and investing in military bases, tiny specks of semi-sovereignty strewn around the globe. That way, the frontier would be not a refuge for masterless men like Boone but the forefront of the march of civilization, advancing at a stately pace.

Which, rather than mark the end of the empire, simply marked a new chapter in empire-building and shifted focus from land to technology and standardisation – of language, equipment and resources.

There is simply to much information crammed neatly into this 528 page book to name all of the facts and figures that blew my history-loving freaking mind, so I plan to share only a few on my favorites. The country’s anguish, and American indifference to it, persisted into the mid-twentieth century: Immerwahr’s descriptions of how the Filipinos experienced World War II — caught between the Japanese occupiers and an American government much more focused on the war in Europe — are especially disturbing. 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. A grandson of Congregationalist missionaries, Sanford Dole (also a relative of the pineapple baron-to-be, James Dole) became the first president of the territory.