Summary

This section encompasses the tenth through twelfth chapters of Part I: The Colonial Empire. In chapter ten, “Fortress America,” Immerwahr describes Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1934 decision to establish an office called the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. To this office, Delano Roosevelt appointed Ernest Gruening, one of the members of the Anti-Imperialist League. The United States at this time, had colonies that supplied sugar, but its economy did not depend on those colonies, not even on sugar.

Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, nationalists continued to fight with the American government. In the Philippines, Manuel Quezon, a moderate politician willing to collaborate with the colonial government, is coming into significant power. Worried that the Philippine economy could not withstand independence, Quezon sought to ingratiate himself to the Americans and to maintain the Americans in power. Douglas MacArthur arrived in the Philippines, certain that his...