Well, what's amazing, Danielle, is it's not even, you know, I think the same thing all the time, but it's like, let's just bring us to the present moment because you pull probably 10 people off the street and talk about the United States Empire.

And they'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about? I mean, I've had people say, like, are you talking about Star Wars? Like, I don't understand using the the word empire so confusing. When you look back,

uh, not even a hundred years ago and United States officials, including the president and his

cabinet, we're talking about renaming the United States to imperial America or greater America,

simply because of the acquisition of territories at the time, let alone the thousand plus bases that, you know, we have all over the planet now.

So let's pivot to a little bit about this, because I'm really curious of your insight as a historian of just echoes of the past.

Like, for example, I mean, we hear this old adage, like history repeats

itself all the time. Of course, a little simplistic, but I think a more accurate one is that

history echoes throughout the present. So I guess talk about how fucked up things are today

and how like, how do you compare this bizarre period to times past?

I think one big difference in terms of empire building is that the US emerge at a time when

empires were becoming less popular, at least outward inspired, empire in the traditional sense,

which was you go in, you

conquer another country, you add their land base to your land base, and now those people

are your subject, and that was the traditional way of conquering an empire.

That started becoming less palatable, both because it kind of was too, it was too obvious.

It was becoming less accepted, this idea that just naked force going in and taking over was the way to go.

And also in a sneaky way, because people started figuring out that you can get the same benefits without having to actually take responsibility

than for all the people you have conquered, for actually having to provide infrastructure and all

of that, you can just set up a puppet government, squeeze whatever resources you want out of

the nation, and not have to deal with them. I mean, there's one story that's actually trippy.

When you think about the last major war

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