Is there an American Empire?

With a name like “The United States of America”, it can be easy to forget that this country’s borders extend well beyond the fifty states of the union.  In fact, millions of American citizens live on US territory well outside those borders.  It’s not just Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and the North Mariana Islands, but the many military bases we occupy across the globe too.  “Empire” might not always be a word associated with the USA, but some historians  think the label fits.  Dr. Daniel Immerwahr is one of them, and he thinks that the country’s trajectory in capturing new territory bears a striking resemblance to the British Empire—the same one that the country’s architects were so often critical of.  Book: How to Hide an Empire: a History of the Greater United States Guest: Dr. Daniel Immerwahr, Professor of history at Northwestern University Producer: Elliot Smith Music: Silas Bohen and Coleman Hamilton Editors: Bethany Denton and Jeff Emtman

Om Podcasten

UnTextbooked is brought to you by teen change-makers who are looking for answers to big questions. Have you ever wondered if protests really can save lives, why assimilation required Native American kids to attend boarding schools, how Black-led organizations for mutual aid began, how the fear of communism led the United States to plan the overthrows of many leaders in Latin America, or why Brazilian cars run on sugar? Or maybe you've questioned when Asian Americans will stop being seen as "perpetual foreigners," how African heritage influences Black activism, or what resilience looks like for Iranian women?  Your textbooks probably didn't teach you how American Jews were an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement, if history’s greatest leaders were generalists or specialists, how a Black teenager and his young lawyer changed America’s criminal justice system, or if either the US or the USSR won the Cold War. Did you know some of the forgotten BIPOC women of history were spying in aid of the French Resistance, that there's more to being a leader than going down with your battleship, or that there is a long history of gender expression in Native American cultures that goes beyond the male/female binary? Listen in as we interview famous authors and historians who have the answers.  Context is the key to understanding topics like British imperialism, segregation, racism, criminal justice, identifying as non-binary and so much more. These intergenerational conversations bring the full power of history to you with the depth and vividness that most textbooks lack. Real history, to help you find answers to your big questions. UnTextbooked makes history unboring forever.