How to Hide an Empire A History of the Greater United States

I think it's called history of the greater united states.

And I'm so glad that you are here because William and I, we read a lot of books at the same time, but seldom have we had a book where we talk about it so much to each other. And yours is one such book.

Also, it has to be said, this is unusually, it came to me from my kids. They'd all read this before I got my hands on it. And when they heard we were thinking of doing the United States and Empire, they all just said, there's one book, dad, you've got to get him on.

I mean, I don't want to boast about this, but I did read your book about three months ago.

And I think that often clouds the factual matter, which is that if by empire you mean a country with colonies, which I think is the sort of minimal definition we could possibly have of an empire.

Yeah, I mean, just among among the territories that are linked to America, we should say and we'll be discussing from here on in. We're talking about Hawaii, we're talking about the Philippines, we're talking about Guam, we're talking about Puerto Rico.

And this idea of how Daniel Emmerwahr has a book called America's Hidden Empire and whether this slots into that kind of description.

We are in the middle of an incredible run with Daniel Immerwahr and his fantastic book How to Hide an Empire, a short history of the greater United States that has taught Anita and I so much stuff we didn't know.

it is a spectacular read it's one of these two I both agree of all the books we've read lately for this podcast this is one that stands right out and it's extraordinary book that blows your mind every other page you will not read it once let me put it this way you will read it a number of times and you will keep coming back to it it's a fabulous book really really interesting

Daniel Immerwahr's book How to Hide an Empire, a short history of the greater United States, is available in paperback, go get it.

author of the spectacular How to Hide an Empire, the short history of the great United States.

I read a great book a few years ago called How to Hide an Empire news basically saying you know up until World War II almost all the empires were based on territory you know Britain goes around and sets up all these colonies uh the Romans go around and set up all these colonies but the American empire coming out of the Second World War is an empire not of boots on the ground necessarily but the standards which we set why you know first off that everyone speaks English but but also that you know screws were set up the American way or that you know they drive on this side of the road like what America exported the the empire that America is is primarily a soft power um empire