The Not-Quite States of America

An eye-opening journey to the most overlooked parts of America.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, Little League baseball games, and residents who serve in the U.S. military at high rates. So 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. Starting in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mack examines the Founding Fathers' arguments over expansion. In American Samoa, he explores Polynesia's outsize influence on American...