Suburban Empire: Cold War Militarization in the US Pacific

by Lauren Hirshberg

Overview

Suburban Empire takes readers to the US missile base at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, at the matrix of postwar US imperial expansion, the Cold War nuclear arms race, and the tide of anti-colonial struggles rippling across the world. Hirshberg shows that the displacement of indigenous Marshallese within Kwajalein Atoll mirrors the segregation and spatial politics of the mainland US as local and global iterations of US empire took hold. Tracing how Marshall Islanders navigated US military control over their lands, Suburban Empire reveals that Cold War–era suburbanization was perfectly congruent with US colonization, military testing, and nuclear fallout. The structures of suburban segregation cloaked the destructive history of control and militarism under a veil of small-town innocence.  
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520289161
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/15/2022
Series:	American Crossroads , #64
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lauren Hirshberg is Assistant Professor of History at Regis University in Denver, Colorado.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

A Note on Language xi

Introduction-Home on the Range: US Empire and Innocence in the Cold War Pacific 1

1 From Wartime Victory to Cold War Containment in the Pacific: Building the Postwar US Security State on Marshallese Insecurity 39

2 New Homes for New Workers: Colonialism, Contract, and Construction 78

3 Domestic Containment in the Pacific: Segregation and Surveillance on Kwajalein 113

4 "Mayberry by the Sea": Americans Find Home in the Marshall Islands 158

5 Reclaiming Home: Operation Homecoming and the Path toward Marshallese Self-Determination 191

6 US Empire and the Shape of Marshallese Sovereignty in the "Postcolonial" Era 232

Conclusion: Kwajalein and Ebeye in a New Era of Insecurity 269

Acknowledgments 285

Notes 291

Works Cited 345

Index 355

Editorial Reviews

"Suburban Empire will be of particular interest to historians of technology focused on nuclear science and technology, race and colonialism, built environments, and cultural history."

Technology and Culture