Why is this book titled How to Hide an Empire?

The book’s title, How to Hide an Empire, is not only catchy. It also acknowledges one of the book’s central concerns: the overall ignorance that Americans have towards their country’s imperial and territorial history. Because this history is so rarely taught or learned, the American empire has been one largely “hidden” from view. The most obvious reference to the idea of “hiding an empire” takes place in the anecdote about Cornelius Rhoads and his involvement in Puerto Rico. As Immerwahr notes, Rhoads was honored and celebrated for a long time by the American Association for Cancer Research, in part because the AACR had never known anything of Rhoads’ controversial involvement in Puerto Rico. Immerwahr uses this anecdote as an example of the ways in which uneven distribution of information can obscure history, both past...