Yes, the US had an empire - and in the Virgin Islands, it still does

The US’s national traditions of American exceptionalism and anti-imperialism perpetuate the myth that the US is not and has never been an empire. How can anyone forget George W Bush’s infamous claim that the US was the only great power in history to have refused the opportunity to become an empire?

But Bush was wrong: the US’s imperial past is very real – and remnants of its empire are still around to this day. This year, the US Virgin Islands, located in the Caribbean basin, mark the centennial of their formal transfer from Denmark to the US. The US