Imperial Material: National Symbols in the Us Colonial Empire

An ambitious history of flags, stamps, and currency--and the role they played in US imperialism.

In Imperial Material, Alvita Akiboh reveals how US national identity has been created, challenged, and transformed through embodiments of empire found in US territories, from the US dollar bill to the fifty-star flag. These symbolic objects encode the relationships between territories--including the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam--and the empire with which they have been entangled. Akiboh shows how such items became objects of local power, their original intent transmogrified. For even if imperial territories were not always front and center for federal lawmakers and administrators, their inhabitants remained continuously aware of the imperial United States, whose presence announced itself on every bit of currency, every stamp, and the local flag.

Author: Alvita Akiboh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 11/10/2023
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.54w x 0.87d
ISBN13: 9780226828480
ISBN10: 0226828484
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | 20th Century
- Political Science | Imperialism
- Reference | Genealogy & Heraldry