Imperial Material: National Symbols in the US Colonial Empire

An ambitious history of flags, stamps, and currency—and the role they played in US imperialism.

In Imperial Material, Alvita Akiboh reveals how US national identity has been created, challenged, and transformed through embodiments of empire found in US territories, from the US dollar bill to the fifty-star flag. These symbolic objects encode the relationships between territories—including the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam—and the empire with which they have been ...