528pp., 30 (cloth) Todd Miller, Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the US Border Around the World. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). 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 fully enjoyable work of history. Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. 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. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr reveals how US doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the US Congress. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the 19th century's most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on US soil. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.

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. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an 'empire', exercising power around the world. We are familiar with maps that outline all 50 states. Daniel Immerwahr teaches history at Northwestern University and is the author of How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States.

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