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A review by clownface
How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr
informative
medium-paced
5.0
AMAZING. incredibly informative, engaging, and simply well-written. i learned so much, both in the terms of "conversational small-talk fun facts" and "debate club topics", and beyond. there were so many fascinating connections between things that i wouldn't've ever thought to connect. example: filipino nurses are so common in parts of the US because herbert hoover, the Great Standardizer, sought to standardize how medicine is taught in all of the US - including the Philippines, which the US occupied at the time.
the main thesis is that the US had a stint as a true imperial power, but as technology advanced, owning colonies became less and less important - colonies were expensive, dangerous, uncomfortable, and made other nations see you as a bit aggressive or expansionist. if you don't *have* to harvest rubber, why should you? if you make it from scratch, you don't have to worry about controlling indonesia or the congo! extending that idea, why is it important to conquer territory to win a war, when you can simply fly over enemy forces and bomb their capital directly? some terrifying, but incredibly thought-provoking, stuff.
a half-inch nut slots into a half-inch screw, as it were.
the main thesis is that the US had a stint as a true imperial power, but as technology advanced, owning colonies became less and less important - colonies were expensive, dangerous, uncomfortable, and made other nations see you as a bit aggressive or expansionist. if you don't *have* to harvest rubber, why should you? if you make it from scratch, you don't have to worry about controlling indonesia or the congo! extending that idea, why is it important to conquer territory to win a war, when you can simply fly over enemy forces and bomb their capital directly? some terrifying, but incredibly thought-provoking, stuff.
a half-inch nut slots into a half-inch screw, as it were.