Adam Wasserman’s Reviews > How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States > Status Update

In this new pointillist empire, colonialism was a liability, not an asset. The best bases were those that didn’t enmesh large populations. They were places where, in the words of Dr. No, the United States would have to “account to no one.”

Or, as Albizu put it, “The Yankees are interested in the cage but not the birds.”