The Greater United States

choi

Jason Willick, The Greater United States; The story of American expansionism, focusing on the overseas territories and possessions that the US, over the years, has colonized and controlled.. Wall Street Journal, Mar 14, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how ... -states-11552518511
(book review on Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire; A history of the greater United States. Farrar, 2019)

Quote:

"Northwestern University history professor Daniel Immerwahr * * * recounts stories * * * such as the intense Puerto Rican nationalist rebellion in 1950. Pedro Albizu Campos's nationalists struck seven Puerto Rican cities on Oct 30; the government suppressed them with tanks and air power. Would-be assassins in Washington also tried to storm the Blair House while [President] Harry Truman was inside/ The president 'inadvisably poked his head out the window' during the gunfight, and a police officer was killed.

"Mr Immerwahr * * * harshly condemns US imperialism, but doesn't sufficiently reckon with the geopolitical realities that drove US expansion. He argues that maintaining overseas territories undermined America's professed commitment to representative government [America's oversea territories has no voting member in Congress] and self-determination. But while US expansion did involve shameful episodes, it was not primarily driven by a goal of subjugating others.  Even after US independence, France, Britain, and Spain were all still carving up the North American continent. Historian Michael Lind has noted that, although the early US was confined to the eastern seaboard, the nation's leaders undertook deliberate efforts to deny European empires access to crucial seaports (Like Spanish Pensacola, Fla) that were then beyond American control. * * * [While engaging in expansion,] it [US] was also making defensive moves to counter [European] rivals that are no less violent or expansive.


"Mr Immerwahr engagingly describes how, during the 19th century, the US seized various islands for their abundance of guano (this was, briefly, a popular fertilizer in the [American] mainland)/ But the US didn't seek Pacific islands primarily to extract their resources; it did so because they could secure coaling stations for US steamships and help keep trade routes to Asia open.

"The author's criticisms are on firmer ground when it comes to the Philippines. When going to war against the Spanish in 1898, the US appealed to Filipinos' desires for self-determination but ended up occupying the country for more than four decades, violently suppressing an independence movement. He emphasizes the racist aspects o this occupation. Yet again he fails to note the role of great-power jockeying, which complicates tidy moral categories.  The US occupied the Philippines in an era when rising powers were building empires in Asia. Had history turned out differently, the Philippines might have been claimed by imperial Germany -- which already had snapped up parts of New Guinea and the Marshall and Mariana islands -- and subjected to the same harsh treatment as Germany's African colonies. And of course, the Philippines were seized by a rival power, Japan, during World War II. At the start of the fighting, when the US appeared more dedicated to arming Britain [Isles] than defending its own colony, the Philippines president protested poignantly that Americans 'anguish at the fate of a distant cousin while a daughter is being raped in the back room.' Yet the US did ultimately come to the rescue—and finally granted the Philippines its independence.

"According to Mr Immerwahr, * * * it [US] created what he calls a 'pointillist empire' -- a network of 800 overseas military bases around the world.  But what of America's chief rival in this period? The Soviet Union was not a 'pointillist empire' but the genuine variety -- and ideologically ruthless hegemon that crushed Eastern Europe

Note:
(a)
(i) The review is locked behind paywall. There is no need to read the rest.
(ii) The book itself underlines "an" in its title.
(b)
(i) Mariana Islands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Islands
(The islands were named after the influential Spanish queen Mariana of Austria; The Spanish were the first Europeans to see islands, in 1521 -- and claimed them in 1667; after Spanish–American War, Spain ceded Guam to US; Spain in German-Spanish Treaty of 1899 sell Northern Marianas to Germany; Japan seized all of Germany's colonial possessions in East Asia and Micronesia, including the Northern Mariana Islands after World War I [which brought about May Fourth Movement 五四运动 in China])
(ii) Mariana of Austria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_of_Austria
(1634 – 1696; queen 1649-1665; daughter Margaret Theresa (1651 – 1673 [died of bronchitis during pregnancy]) -- see painting)