Witty and thoughtful, with plenty of vibrant characters and vivid descriptions, The Not-Quite States of America is also a well-researched history and a highly enjoyable travelogue. finds surprising patriotism (and adventure) in American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Mack includes you in all the fun of his journey.Ī read you can’t put down and can’t quit rolling around in your mind afterward. Mack catalogues his thirty-thousand-mile trek through, and examines the traits they have inherited from the U.S.-little-league games, star-spangled banners-and the cultural crisscross that makes them unique examples of America’s own hybridized culture. As Mack shows, the territories aren’t mere footnotes to American history they are a crucial part of the story. The Not-Quite States of America is an entertaining account of the territories’ place in the USA, and it raises fascinating questions about the nature of empire. And everywhere he goes in Puerto Rico, he listens in on the lively debate over political status-independence, statehood, or the status quo. In the Northern Mariana Islands, he learns about star-guided seafaring from one of the ancient tradition’s last practitioners. He tours Guam with members of a military veterans’ motorcycle club, who offer personal stories about the territory’s role in World War II and its present-day importance for the American military. He explores Polynesia’s outsize influence on American culture, from tiki bars to tattoos, in American Samoa. Virgin Islands, Mack examines the Founding Fathers’ arguments over expansion. When Doug Mack realized just how little he knew about the territories, he set off on a globe-hopping quest covering more than 30,000 miles to see them all.
How did these territories come to be part of the United States? What are they like? And why aren’t they states? post offices, and Little League baseball games. But they’re filled with American flags, U.S. Virgin Islands-and their 4 million people are often forgotten, even by most Americans. Scattered shards in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the not-quite states-American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. "To truly understand the United States, one must understand the 'not-quite states of America." -Mark Stein, best-selling author of How the States Got Their ShapesĮveryone knows that America is 50 states and…some other stuff.
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