---
title: "First Year Book Author: “The United States Has Never Just Been a Union of States”"
date: 2026-09-16T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/first-year-book-author-the-united-states-has-never-just-been-a-union-of-states"
section: Articles
---
# First Year Book Author: “The United States Has Never Just Been a Union of States”

*September 16, 2026* — by [Laura Barnhardt Cech](/author/laura-barnhardt-cech)


> Before his campus visit, “How to Hide an Empire” writer Daniel Immerwahr talks about the backstories in the nation’s history.

*First Year Book ASL 2773 1920x1080 — The 2026-27 First Year Book, “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the United States," by Daniel Immerwahr, explores the narrative history of the U.S. along with its overseas territory. (Photo by Amina Lampkin; inset portrait courtesy of Daniel Immerwahr)*

<span>By the time Daniel Immerwahr was a graduate student teaching American history, he didn't think there was much left to surprise him. "I love teaching it, but it just felt like a story that I knew," he said.</span>

<span>Then, on a research trip to the Philippines, he noticed streets named after U.S. presidents and a transit system designed around repurposed U.S. Army jeeps. He'd known, intellectually, that the Philippines had been a U.S. colony for about 50 years. But standing in Manila, it clicked in a different way. "It was just the difference between reading the lyrics and hearing the music," he said.</span>

<span>The observations became the impetus for Immerwahr to write a narrative history of the United States with its overseas territory included in the story. The resulting book, “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the United States,” was selected as UMD’s 2026-27 </span>[<span>First Year Book</span>](https://fyb.umd.edu/)<span> and is particularly relevant as the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. </span>

<span>Immerwahr, now a Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities and Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University, is coming to campus on Sept. 16. Government and politics professor Sarah Croco will moderate a Q+A at noon, followed by a 5 p.m. event at the School of Public Policy that has reached capacity. </span>

<span>Ahead of his conversations with students, he talked about what the UMD community might take away from his New York Times bestselling book.</span>

**Q: What prompted you to write the book?**

<span>I realized that the basic story that I'd been taught and that I'd been teaching just wasn't accurate, wasn't inclusive and was missing huge things. The book was an exercise to retell U.S. history with these overseas parts of the United States that are under U.S. jurisdiction as part of the story. I just had to wrap my head around the fact that I'm trying to defend in the book, which is that the United States has never just been a union of states. </span>

<span>I was surprised and delighted to find myself reconsidering familiar things—the dollar, the flag, the map, the census—once I finally had the full United States in view.</span>

**Q: How has writing this book changed the way you see the world?**

<span>The land that I used to call the United States, I now call the U.S. mainland, recognizing that there are other parts of the United States that are beyond it. I also got really interested in the backstories of objects. So often you only recognize them for their function, and you don't recognize them for their provenance. You get into a frame of mind to say, “Wait, wait a minute, where do these objects come from? Why are they shaped the way they are? What's the history behind them?” And often, it's a really deep and interesting history.</span>

<span>My entire childhood, we'd put our homework in manila folders, and if you were mailing something that has a lot of pages, you’d put it in a manila envelope. And it just never occurred to me to ask what the adjective “manila” meant. I kind of thought it referred to a color. But actually refers to a certain kind of fiber that comes from the Philippines. This is just one of the weird ways in which U.S. everyday culture is connected to its imperial past. </span>

**Q: College students are navigating a world shaped by globalization, migration and international connections. How does this understanding change the way they might think about citizenship, identity and America's role in the world?**

<span>Through hundreds of military bases, the United States often has a presence in other countries. The total area of the military bases is not huge, but the political impact of them is enormous. The basis of international relations is deeply conditioned by the fact that the United States has this rarely spoken of (within the United States) presence everywhere. And it is shocking how much international politics has snagged on the presence of those bases in one way or another over the years.</span>

**Q: In addition to prompting important conversations, what do you hope that students take away from this book?**

<span>I am eager for people within the United States to see the world more as outsiders see it and to recognize its many geographical intrusions. </span>

<span>But also, as a historian, I think that the present is interestingly and profoundly shaped by the past. And one thing that this book tries to do is point out the unexpected ways in which things that are just the regular furniture of our lives, like “West Side Story,” the birth control pill, actually have these complex and really interesting backstories that extend beyond the borders of the U.S. mainland. And only if you have a wider sense of the United States are you able to see that.</span>

<span>I think that curiosity is something that we historians want to inculcate in people around us.</span>


**Sidebar note:**

## “America 250: A History of the Greater United States”


Join First Year Book author Daniel Immerwahr for a conversation about what gets left out when we define a nation only by what appears on an iconic map. It will be held at noon Sept. 16 in the Prince George’s Room of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union and moderated by government and politics Professor Sarah Croco. Free copies of “How to Hide an Empire” are available at Stamp’s Information Desk.

## “Is America an Empire? Does it Matter?”


Immerwahr and public policy Professor Joshua Shifrinson will discuss how making America’s hidden empire visible can reshape our understanding of contemporary politics at 5 p.m. Sept. 16 at 3301 Thurgood Marshall Hall. Registration has reached capacity. Walk-ins are welcome and will be accommodated as space allows.





**Topics:** [Campus &amp; Community](https://today.umd.edu/tags/campus-community)


**Tags:** [Student Experience](https://today.umd.edu/topic/student-experience)


**Units:** [Office of Undergraduate Studies](https://today.umd.edu/topic/office-undergraduate-studies)