Brief review of Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes:  “In her new book, she argues that 1898, the year the United States annexed Hawaii, was perhaps the most significant in American history. It was the year the country officially became a colonial power, a charge led by Theodore Roosevelt, who, she writes, ‘pined for these [island] bases for years the way a normal man envisions his dream house. All [he] ever wanted was a cozy little global empire with a few islands here and there to park a fleet of battleships.'”

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