How the United States Built its Colonial Empire, Pt. 2

Journalist Carlos Berríos Polanco talks with James about how the United States acquired its inhabited overseas colonies, why the constitution doesn't fully apply there, and what it means as Trump says he wants to add new territories or states. 

• How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr

• Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State edited by Alfred W. McCoy and Francisco A. Scarano

• The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture by Amy Kaplan

• https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/182/244/ 

• https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/182/1/ 

• https://theconversation.com/why-russia-gave-up-alaska-americas-gateway-to-the-arctic-74675?xid=PS_smithsonian 

• https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CARIBBEAN/MILITARY-BUILDUP/egpbbnzyrpq/ 

• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/magazine/venezuela-empires-colony.html 

• https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-us-state-trump-rodriguez-chavismo-silence-634203c885803b018ecd8ac012bb249d 

• https://time.com/article/2026/06/02/trump-annex-canada-51st-state-rhetoric-carney-us-partnership-message/ 

• https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/28/nyregion/new-light-on-old-fbi-fight-decades-of-surveillance-of-puerto-rican-groups.html 

• https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/1685.html

• https://theconversation.com/us-territories-have-a-voice-in-congress-but-no-vote-heres-why-283547 

• https://www.nminewsservice.com/cnmi-covenant-united-states-50th-anniversary-explainer-timeline/ 

• https://apnews.com/article/american-samoa-voting-citizenship-alaska-trump-eda6c32ce0fcdca6edb22efac26e403d 

• https://elecciones2024.ceepur.org/Escrutinio_General_123/index.html#es/default/PLEBISCITO_Resumen.xml 

• https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099257005212415735 

• https://www.doi.gov/oia/compacts-of-free-association 

• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/30/puerto-rico-independence-movement