The Not-Quite States of America : dispatches from the territories and other far-flung outposts of the USA / Doug Mack.

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-287) and index.

A very brief note on the territories and their various designations -- The Empire's new clothes: The Virgin Islands of the United States -- Foreign in a domestic sense: American Samoa -- Offshoring the American experience: Guam -- Land of opportunity: The Northern Mariana Islands -- Be true to your home: Puerto Rico -- The future of empire.

Everyone knows that America is 50 states and... some other stuff. Scattered shards in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the not-quite states -- American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands -- and their 4 million people are often forgotten, even by most Americans. But they're filled with American flags, U.S. post offices, and Little League baseball games. How did these territories come to be part of the United States? What are they like? And why aren't they states? When Doug Mack realized just how little he knew about the territories, he set off on a globe-hopping quest covering more than 30,000 miles to see them all. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mack examines the Founding Fathers' arguments over expansion. He explores Polynesia's outsize influence on American culture, from tiki bars to tattoos, in American Samoa. He tours Guam with members of a military veterans' motorcycle club, who offer personal stories about the territory's role in World War II and its present-day importance for the American military. In the Northern Mariana Islands, he learns about star-guided seafaring from one of the ancient tradition's last practitioners. And everywhere he goes in Puerto Rico, he listens in on the lively debate over political status -- independence, statehood, or the status quo. As Mack shows, the territories aren't mere footnotes to American history; they are a crucial part of the story.