Accounts of the rise of the United States as an imperial power frequently cite the 1898 Spanish-American War as the decisive moment. In their new book, however, Miles Evers and Eric Grynaviski contend that “the claim that 1898 was a turning point is dramatically overstated” (152). Instead, Evers and Grynaviski focus on what they call “America's first Pacific Empire,” the collection of around 80 islands, including Hawaii and Samoa, that the United States “began to collect between its independence and 1899” (13). They find that this earlier period of American imperialism had little to do with economic pressures to open new markets, strategic incentives to acquire new naval bases, or missionary impulses to save souls. Instead, the authors provide an “entrepreneurial theory” (3) of American imperialism, which focuses on how the search for profitable commodities by private individuals could push American policymakers into escalating imperial commitments.

The theory Evers and Grynaviski develop is both novel and carefully constructed. Rather than focus on economic factors emanating from the metropole, they focus on the “gamblers, grifters, castaways, and con artists” (13) that were scattered across the Pacific. They argue that these small American entrepreneurs were primarily driven by the search for pro