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

by Daniel Immerwahr

The Second World War in the Philippines rarely appears in history textbooks. But it should. It was by far the most destructive event ever to take place on U.S. soil.

if you looked up at the end of 1945 and saw a U.S. flag overhead, odds are that you weren’t seeing it because you lived in a state. You were more likely colonized or living in occupied territory. Probably somewhere in the Pacific.

You might see the intrusions of colonialism into recent politics as a sort of hangover—a price paid for yesterday’s excesses.