How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

Technological development during World War II “left the United States in an extraordinary position” (298) with an additional advantage: the setting of standards. Standards involved everything from the size of screws and paper sizes to traffic lights. Daily life “relies on the silent coordination of extremely complex processes” (299). For instance, Britain used its own imperial system of measurement in the colonies, as “[e]mpires standardized people too” (303). Such standardization also occurred in the American-controlled Philippines in nursing and its John Hopkins curriculum.

1920s Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, was one of the individuals responsible for simplification and standardization, which he saw “as the keys to prosperity” (301). Hoover wanted this initiative to be carried out voluntarily. However, “the mere act of the government calling an all-industry convention was often enough to secure agreement” (302). The initiative involved standardizing pavement, lumber, steel, mattresses, doors, screws, and many other objects. Screw incompatibility was a problem for airplanes and cars—“complex vibrating objects whose failure could mean death” (302).

The lack of standards posed a problem during WWII, as the US “was supplying relentless torrent of stuff to theaters all over the world” (305). Industrial incompatibility “in a war of jeeps and bombers” were not just inconvenient but “crippling” (306). The US spent $600 million to send “spare screws, nuts, and bolts overseas to compensate for this incompatibility” (306). As a result, the US became an “undisputed standard-setter for the Allies” (308). A wartime committee in New York and London “oversaw agreements on repair for aircraft, the width of rail lines, and radio broadcasting frequencies” (309). The 1945 American standard for screws with a 60-degree screw thread angle was accepted by Britain instead of their 55-degree angle. The International Organization of Standardization (ISO) was established that same year.

As an economic and military superpower that arose out of WWII, the US “flooded the world with its arms and equipment” (311). As a result, foreign armies were forced into accepting US standards. NATO, established in 1949, “pushed for standardization even further” turning it “into a chronic peacetime” problem (311). Even in the music industry, countries adopted the pitch of a concert A, 440 Hertz in the US from the European 435 Hertz. Similarly, international aviation had adopted the English language as the language used in the air by 1950. Road signs, like the octagonal stop sign, came from the US too. It was initially a yellow sign, a global standard, which was then turned to red to signify danger in 1954, which “showed the stupefying privilege the United States enjoyed in the realm of standards” (313). The stop sign is one of the “empire-killing technologies,” which “had a formidable effect” (314). One key exception here is the US avoiding the metric system.

When the Pilgrim settlers arrived in North America in 1620, they were lucky to meet Squanto from the Patuxet group, who spoke English due to being kidnapped and taken to London. The colonists thought of Squanto as a “special instrument sent of God” (317). Today, English is spoken around the world, and native English speakers “can travel to nearly any spot on the map, confident that someone within hailing distance will speak their language” (317). This language “has spread like an invasive weed,” while the world seems “designed for the convenience of the United States” (318). The dissemination of English has “no historical precedent” (318) since Latin was not nearly as widely used. English plays a significant role in “making some ideas more readily thinkable,” impacting “which communities you join, which books you read” (318).

In colonial America, languages “were sites of conflict” (391). The Founding Fathers, like Benjamin Franklin, spoke several languages and wondered whether German would push the English language out of Pennsylvania. The US government forced its colonial subjects to learn English, while in the Philippines some, like Emilio Aguinaldo, resisted. In turn, Albizu viewed the use of English in Puerto Rico as a tool of imperialism. In the early 20th century, it was French that was preferred by diplomats while German, French, and Russian dominated science. British leader Winston Churchill dreamt about “the empires of the future” being “the empires of the mind” as he sought the global use of English (321). However, this transformation did not occur immediately.

There were many attempts to popularize English. For example, English pedagogue Ivor Richards taught Basic English and had the Chinese government agree to its teaching. Robert Lathan Owen, part Cherokee, devised a “global alphabet” in which “[w]ords were spelled out exactly as they sounded” (323). Despite the initial interest by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the alphabet did not take off.

In British-controlled India, Mohandas Gandhi viewed English as “a sign of slavery” (325). Manuel Quezon despaired too because the Philippines lacked a single spoken Indigenous language thanks to Spanish and American colonization. At first, English was demoted in decolonized areas. For instance, Singapore, free of British control, made Malay its official language in 1959. Mao Zedong prohibited English in China during the Cultural Revolution.

English spread anyway. This dissemination occurred for several key reasons. First, the latter became an official foreign policy goal in 1965. Second, hundreds of thousands of foreign students received their education in the US and returned home where they “ranked among the most educated and powerful” (326). Then there were large numbers of foreign military trainees attending US military academies. After World War II, air traffic controllers gradually switched to using English “given the paramount importance of clear communication in the skies” (328). By the 1960s, more than half of scientific publications were in English. Finally, the usage of the Internet “favors English” for many reasons, such as the English-derived programming language like C++, while web address bars use ASCII. The proliferation of English on the web is “the result of free choices” (331). However, many foreign opinion-makers consider the domination of English on the Internet “the ultimate act of intellectual colonialism” (331). The dissemination of English “now appears inexorable” (331). So much so that American politicians frequently only speak English, expecting their foreign counterparts to understand them, while foreign politicians speak several languages.

In both the James Bond books and films, and spoofs like Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, some villains operate from an island lair threatening the entire world with destruction. James Bond creator Ian Fleming served as the assistant director of naval intelligence for Britain during WWII. There were rumors that an ultra-wealthy Swedish man, Axel Wenner-Gren, was aiding the Germans by allowing them to use a secret Caribbean harbor. Wenner-Gren was responsible for building the Seattle and Disneyland monorails and participated in a myriad of industries, including wood pulp, banking, telecommunications, munitions, and, later, computers. He was investigated by the FBI due to his ties to the Nazi German statesman and convicted war criminal Herman Göring.

Ian Fleming relocated to Jamaica and lived there between 1946 and his death 18 years later (338). He set some of his novels, such as the 1958 Doctor No, on the island: “Fictional islands before Doctor No were the godforsaken outskirts of civilization,” but after the novel, “they were centers of global power” (340). Other Bond films, like You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever, also feature islands.

Islands also gained importance in real life for the United States. Tiny islands would not be launching independence movements, unlike large colonies. Americans transitioned to using islands as part of its new globalized empire for such purposes as airplane landing strips or housing radio transmitters, such as the CIA’s use of Swan Island against Cuba. In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ernest Gruening, who then headed the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, engaged in active colonization of the guano islands starting in 1935. In some cases, the US brought in Hawaiians “[b]ecause of their adaptability to prevailing conditions” with food and water “and instructions to ward off invaders” (341).

The US also used islands for nuclear testing such as the Bikini Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands, in 1946. The US forced its 167 inhabitants to leave and live on Rongerik Atoll. When their supplies ran out, they wanted to return to Bikini but were unable to do so. The US continued to use the area for dozens of similar nuclear weapons tests in the 1940s and 1950s. Since Japan had firsthand experience on the receiving end of American nuclear weapons, many Japanese people protested American testing in Micronesia. The original 1954 Japanese Gojira (Godzilla), about an ancient monster that awoke after American hydrogen bomb tests, “was a protest film, hammering away at the dangers of the US testing in the Pacific” (351).

Americans also had serious nuclear-related accidents in foreign countries. In 1966, an American B-52 crashed off the Mediterranean coast while dropping four hydrogen bombs, three of which landed in the Spanish village of Palomares and one in the sea. Two bombs detonated, with conventional explosives leaking radiation. In 1968, another accident took place in Denmark’s part of Greenland where the US used the Thule base close to the Soviet Union. Another US B-52 crashed with four hydrogen bombs, as its jet fuel ignition set off conventional explosives in all the bombs, leaving a plutonium spill.

Islands were part of a broader pattern that included standardization and technological advancement. After all, the US “did not abandon empire after the Second World War,” but instead “reshuffled its imperial portfolio, divesting itself of large colonies and investing in military bases” (343)—approximately 800 of them. Some examples include 99-year leases on military base sites in the Philippines and Vieques island, used by the US navy as both places became more formally independent. Similarly, “[o]n Guam, increased rights and citizenship came at the cost of a massive military buildup” (344). In Japan, the US ended its formal postwar occupation of the main islands in 1952 but continued to hold Iwo Jima until 1968 and Okinawa until 1972. In the 21st century, Okinawa is formally Japanese, but the US military bases dominate it.