[A] smashing new book… fascinating

Lively and fascinating … [Immerwahr] is incapable of writing a dull page, and he has a real gift for making striking and unusual connections

To call this standout book a corrective would make it sound earnest and dutiful, when in fact it is wry, readable and often astonishing … It’s a testament to Immerwahr’s considerable storytelling skills that I found myself riveted by his sections on Hoover’s quest for standardized screw threads, wondering what might happen next. But beyond its collection of anecdotes and arcana, this humane book offers something bigger and more profound. How to Hide an Empire nimbly combines breadth and sweep with fine-grained attention to detail. The result is a provocative and absorbing history of the United States — ‘not as it appears in its fantasies, but as it actually is.’

There are many histories of American expansionism. How to Hide an Empire renders them all obsolete. It is brilliantly conceived, utterly original, and immensely entertaining - simultaneously vivid, sardonic and deadly serious.

This book changes our understanding of the fundamental character of the United States as a presence in world history. By focusing on the processes by which Americans acquired, controlled, and were affected by territory, Daniel Immerwahr shows that the United States was not just another “empire,” but was a highly distinctive one the dimensions of which have been largely ignored.

How to Hide an Empire is a breakthrough, for both Daniel Immerwahr and our collective understanding of America’s role in the world. His narrative of the rise of our colonial empire outside North America, and then our surprising pivot from colonization to globalization after World War II, is enthralling in the telling -- and troubling for anyone pondering our nation’s past and future. The result is a book for citizens and scholars alike.

A deft disquisition on America, and America in the world, with a raconteur’s touch and keen sense of the absurd

[A] lively new book… Immerwahr peppers his account with colourful characters and enjoyable anecdotes… [How to Hide an Empire] throws light on the histories of everything from the Beatles to Godzilla, the birth-control pill to the transistor radio

This is an easily readable and vividly written book, filled with numerous fascinating tales, some well known, but many obscure… [How to Hide an Empire] illuminate[s] the wider history of both the United States and its colonies

How to Hide an Empire…achieves a strong grounding in its sources material and the wider history of empire studies… [it] is timely and raises weighty questions on themes of identity and belong that are all very relevant today

[A] vivid, and sometimes quirky, retelling of American expansionism… The originality of Immerwahr’s book… [is] in his explanation of how Washington purposely avoided converting its occupations to annexations

Daniel Immerwahr… writes in the manner of an entertaining and informative lecturer who cannot wait to tell the class his latest discovery from the archives

Remarkable ... comprehensive, human, and engaging, clearly the results of long study.

An inspiring guide to the very best of human endeavour - a book filled with well-told stories and lessons

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin demonstrates how leaders are made, not born, as she thoughtfully explores the highs and lows of four U.S. presidents who faced moments of horrific national crisis. Goodwin's clean, assured sentences set the stage as each future president discovers within himself the desire to enter politics, the calamitous blows that knocked each one down, and how they tackled the struggles that tore at the sinews of the country. Most fascinating is Goodwin's revelations about how very differently Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson approached not only their political careers but how they developed the character traits that helped them see-or make-a path toward a critical response that many others disagreed with. Lincoln's delivery of the Emancipation Proclamation, Theodore Roosevelt's handling of labor strikes, FDR's battle against the Great Depression in his first 100 days, and Johnson's prioritization of civil rights while a nation mourned were actions that could have ripped the country further apart but eventually bound it together and strengthened its democratic foundations. The rare weakness within Leadership: In Turbulent Times is the outlining of specific qualities, such as "Take the measure of the man" and "Set a deadline and drive full-bore to meet it," that are meant to distill leadership wisdom into bullet points, like contemporary business books. Goodwin's strength is in the rich context she provides as she shows that great leaders develop in dissimilar ways but ultimately have a vision they reach for and rely on when times are at their most turbulent.

Leadership should help us raise our expectations of our national leaders, our country and ourselves

She writes easily and attractively; the reader is carried along effortlessly with the narrative sweep of her prose . . . engrossing . . . it is impossible not to admire the skill with which Goodwin tells four absolutely riveting stories

She is the most fluent, most wide-ranging of modern presidential chroniclers . . . compelling. There is much in Leadership that offers lessons, even consolations that apply universally. Kearns Goodwin shows they offer lessons that can be embraced by the businessman, the aspiring politician and the striving individual

Riveting . . . Goodwin appraises in illuminating detail

Full of life and colour

A fabulously engrossing, exciting narrative in the grand old style ... overflowing with colour and character

A great work of history… A great biography… Caro has summoned Lyndon Johnson to vivid, intimate life

The fourth volume of one of the most anticipated English-language biographies of the past 30 years... A compelling narrative...that will thrill those who care about American politics, the foundations of power, or both

Political biography of the highest quality… An unmatched psychological portrait of Johnson as John F. Kennedy’s assassination catapults him into the presidency

Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson is said to be on William Hague, George Osborne and Jeremy Hunt’s summer reading list

This book shows the mastery of Johnson in politics, and also the mastery of Caro in biography

A great and occasionally astonishing biography

One of the greatest biographies in the history of American letters

The latest in what is almost without question the greatest political biography in modern times… Nobody goes deeper, works harder or produces more penetrating insights than [Caro]

A major event in biography, history, even publishing itself… Caro has once more combined prodigious research and a literary gift to mount a stage for his Shakespearean figures: LBJ, JFK, LBJ’s nemesis Robert F. Kennedy

A masterly how-to manual, showing Johnson’s knowledge of governing, his peerless congressional maneuvering and effective deal-making. The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a compact library: brilliant biography, gripping history, searing political drama and an incomparable study of power. It’s also a great read… And, after thousands of pages spent with Lyndon Johnson, one of Caro’s singular achievements is that you want more

Brilliant… Riveting reading from beginning to end… The real tour de force in this stunning mix of political and psychological analysis comes in the account of the transition between administrations, from November 23 1963 to January 8, 1964… An utterly fascinating character study, brimming with delicious insider stories… Political wonks, of course, will dive into this book with unbridled passion, but its focus on a larger-than-life, flawed but fascinating individual – the kind of character who drives epic fiction – should extend its reach much, much further. Unquestionably, one of the truly big books of the year

The series’ crowning volume

This pile-driving book has all the ingredients of a great drama, the humiliating childhood breeding a lifelong desire (to be president), the failure (to gain the Democratic nomination), the humiliation (almost constant, by JF Kennedy) the sudden change of fate (the assassination), and the vindication (when Johnson drives through key bills that Kennedy couldn’t, and proves himself the most astute of politicians). Totally compelling

It is an extraordinary story of a deeply flawed character, told with such verve, such command of the facts, and such an understanding of power

A major work of history and biography

The fourth installation of Caro’s masterwork came out this year and, cheeringly, there is no slackening of plot or pace

It is a profound portrait of two men, Johnson and John F. Kennedy, and the relationship between them

A fascinating story, Shakespearean in its passion and fury, as well as darkly comical

This pile-driving book has all the ingredients of a great drama, the humiliating childhood breeding a lifelong desire (to be president), the failure (to gain the Democratic nomination), the humiliation (almost constant, by J. F. Kennedy) the sudden change of fate (the assassination), and the vindication (when Johnson drives through key bills that Kennedy couldn’t, and proves himself the most astute of politicians). Totally compelling

The fourth volume of Caro’s magisterial work spans the five years that end shortly after Kennedy’s assassination, as Johnson prepares to push for a civil rights

A meticulous dissection of political and economic structures in the US… a riveting read by one of the modern masters of historical writing