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

American history, as told from the perspective of the entire domain of power and population. This book recalibrates traditional US history through the eyes of non-white, non-mainland, and non-powerful Americans. The book is separated into three sections; initial westward expansion, territorial gains through war, and World War 2 and modern globalism.

The first section of the book discusses the plight of the Native Americans and the pioneers settling the frontier. It makes the mistreatment of the indigenous people a point of fact and introduces some not so well known episodes of how badly they were treated. However, it does not dwell on this. Instead the author states this section of the book is to explain how America developed its imperial policies in its treatment of new lands and people.

The second section explores imperial America in its heyday. This is when the empire expanded to include Alaska, Guam, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, parts of Cuba, Philippines, and other territories — making all these lands and people American. It discusses the seldom talked about concentration camps in Alaska, where 10% of the natives died. The targeted sterilization, experimentation, and murder of Puerto Ricans by mainland doctors to help the "population problem". It explains how the US allied with Philippine's independence army to win the Spanish-American war then turned on this very allies.

The final section discusses how the idea of empire has changed since World War 2. How, with the advent of airpower, vast territories are no longer required for the reach of empire. The author focuses on military power projection and the "pointillist empire" the US now is. How the US treated Japan and other counties it occupied after the war, especially its territories.

Highly recommend this book to anybody interested in expanding their views of American history. It is a sobering account that is an essential perspective to help both complete the picture of America and understand how history is presented.

Regardless of how history is written, it is always revisionist. This book seeks to revise it with the account of the American people that were forgotten.