Nonfiction Book Club

This group is for nonfiction readers who enjoy thought-provoking discussions.  We vote on a book every month across a wide variety of genres from among recommendations from our group. For more information or to get monthly emails with details about upcoming meetings, contact DianeCosner@gmail.com or 352-259-9168

The book for February 16 will be How to Hide An Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr, recommended by Patricia Shub.

 Description from the book jacket:

We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire," exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories - the islands, atolls, and archipelagos - this country has governed and inhabited?

In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr reveals that overseas possessions, while frequently neglected, have played an essential role in America's story – enabling its rise, testing its ideals, and serving as laboratories and launching pads for critical and sometimes harmful innovations. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he travels to the guano islands, where prospectors planted the flag atop mounds of nitrogen-rich bird droppings, and Puerto Rico, where a distinguished physician conducted grisly medical experiments that provoked independence fighters to later shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the Philippines, we witness the construction of a dazzling fantasy city high in the mountains and the destruction of Manila, the sixth largest city in the United States. All told, the Second World War in the Philippines was the bloodiest event ever to take place on U.S. soil.

At the end of the war, the American empire was at its height: the United States claimed jurisdiction over more people living outside the states than in them. But in the years that followed, the country moved away from traditional colonialism. Instead, it put innovations like plastics, antibiotics, and radio to use, devising a new sort of influence that no longer required the control of colonies. An elaborate network of military bases around the world would give us the Beatles, Sony, and Godzilla, while also extending American power. Ranging from Laura Ingalls Wilder and Daniel Boone to Pearl Harbor and Donald Trump's “birther” attack on Barack Obama, How to Hide an Empire sets the American past and present in a new light. Richly stocked with memorable vignettes and a fresh analysis of what colonialism and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.

The author talks about his book with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvlUGYvLg0s

Upcoming titles:

Mar 16 Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future by Dan Wang

Apr 20 The Accidental Superpower: Ten Years On by Peter Zeihan

Have you read a great nonfiction book recently that would be a good choice to discuss among friends who will take the time and consideration to read it thoroughly?  Hope to see you at the next meeting!