The Other American Colonies - 9780890894996

The Other American Colonies: An International and Constitutional Law Examination of the United States' Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Island Conquests is a thorough and thoughtful examination of U.S. overseas expansionism. This work illustrates how, despite its own anti-colonial beginnings, this country is the world's largest overseas territorial power. Roman looks at U.S. control and treatment of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Micronesia, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas, the Marshall Islands, and Palau, as well as the situations in the Phillippines, Cuba, and Hawaii. As the international community increasingly calls for the termination of colonialism, the book demonstrates how the United States has inconspicuously maintained its empire.From a constitutional perspective, the second-class citizen status of millions living on these territories is compared with American legal rhetoric concerning citizenship and its precepts of equality and justice. From an international law perspective, the work examines this country's integral role in the development of the international norm of self-determination, paradoxically comparing these efforts with its own conquests. The book will be of interest to internationalist, constitutional scholars, historians, and students of political science, anthropology, international relations, and ethnic studies.