lb. Daniel Immerwahr’s «How to Hide an Empire» about questions of race in American Imperialism
The European soccer championship “UEFA EURO 2020” that was held in 2021 has once again spurred comparisons to ancient gladiator games. It also reignited discussions about the “Swissness” of certain members of the Swiss national team who lacked lip-synchronicity during the playing of the Swiss national anthem. At the same time, China’s national soccer team is gearing up with players from Argentina or the UK. These are naturalized solely, it seems, for the purpose of the game. The fluidity of how we interpret ‘nationality’ – depending on economic or political interests – is also the subject of Daniel Immerwahr’s book How to Hide an Empire. After the U.S. had bought the former Spanish colonies, their set objective was to civilize and uplift their subordinates. However, they encountered a problem once these subordinates sought governmental representation since this would have meant that non-white Filipinos could also potentially obtain power. Daniel Immerwahr, History Professor at Northwestern University (IL/USA), examines, among other things, the Philippine-American war and explains how the U.S. solved its “trilemma” between republicanism, white supremacy and overseas expansion. The book first came out in 2019 with Farrar, Straus & Giroux and is now also available as an audio book.
