New book: THE NOT-QUITE STATES OF AMERICA (coming February 2017)

My new book has a cover and a description and a publication date: February 14, 2017.*

Preorder now via the W.W. Norton website or your local bookstore or retailer of choice! Ask for it by name: The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches From the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of the USA

And here's a description:

An entertaining and eye-opening journey to the most overlooked parts of America.

Everyone knows that the USA is made up of fifty states and, uh, . . . some other stuff. The territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands are often neglected, but they are filled with American flags and national parks and US post offices and some 4 million people, many of whom are as proudly red-white-and-blue as any Daughter of the American Revolution.

In The Not-Quite States of America, Doug Mack ventures 31,000 miles across the globe and deep into American history to reveal the fascinating and forgotten story of how these places became part of the United States, what they’re like today, and how they helped create the nation as we know it. Along the way, Mack meets members of millennia-old indigenous groups, far-flung US government workers, ardent separatists, and tropical-paradise dropouts and dreamers in a quixotic and winning quest to find America where it is least expected.


More details (and a full website with photos and highlights and all kinds of fun stuff) coming soon!

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* That's right: Valentine's Day. It's the perfect gift for that special (or not-quite special) someone in your life ... or for anyone, of course. Should I make some thematic Valentine's Day cards? Yeah. I think so. 

American History as a Hero's Journey

As I've worked on my book about the US territories (still in progress, thanks for asking), I've been thinking about the role of the territories in two separate versions of American history: the collective-memory mythology and the actual, factual master narrative.

In the process, I've also been pondering what, exactly, the mythology version looks like. Here's where my mind is right now: I think that the USA largely sees itself as living out its own rags-to-riches tale. Or, to put it another way, a Hero's Journey, in Joseph Campbell's classic formulation:

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

The key detail for the American Hero's Journey is that in the popular imagination, it's now effectively complete, aside from a bit of ongoing housekeeping.*

Basically, it's like this:

Click for larger image

All jokes aside, I think this accurately shows the general contours of how Americans, collectively, see history. I'm very curious to hear if anyone has any alternate takes, so please add your two cents in the comments. 

(And so we're clear: Yes, I know that even the slightest bit of scrutiny and understanding of Actual History reveals this mythology to be mostly false. That's a recurring theme in my book. But for now, I'm just interested in identifying what those Hero's Journey beats are, how the mythology is constructed.)

End of the Road: Notes on Wrapping Up a Tour of the Territories

Back when I was an American Studies major at Carleton College, we had departmental t-shirts that said, “Gone looking for America. Back in five minutes.”

It was a joke, of course, but even as we acknowledged the incredible complexity of “looking for” this nation, this shared experience, the fact is that we overlooked many of the myriad chapters of the American Story—people, cultures, places.

For one thing, we never once studied the United States beyond the states, which is to say the territories (and the commonwealths and the freely associated states; I'm mostly going to use "territories" as a catch-all below).

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to remedy that immense gap in my understanding of the nation. The voyage has taken just a bit longer than five minutes and has involved flying more than 31,000 miles, to the farthest-flung specks of American soil. Across the International Dateline. Across the equator.

Like the nation itself, this road trip has been wonderful and weird and sometimes kinda heartbreaking.

And tomorrow, it’s done. I fly back to icy Minneapolis. To write and stay put for a while and relax at home with Maren. There’s no place like home; I think I heard that somewhere.

But for another 24 hours, I’m here in Vieques, a “double territory,” as one local described it—officially part of Puerto Rico but sorta not quite, just as Puerto Rico is officially part of the USA, but sorta not quite. It’s a quiet, end-of-the-road sort of place, with wild horses and a beached sailboat rusting on the waterfront and a bioluminescent bay that made me giggle with wonder as I kayaked around it last night, plus areas where you can’t go because there’s live ordnance still lying around from the decades when the Navy used Vieques as a bombing range (they finally stopped in 2003, after it became an international cause).



Tonight, I’m going to put on my one pair of long pants and the least-wrinkly shirt in my backpack and treat myself to a nice meal. I’m going to toast the territories and the people I’ve met along the way.

In the movies, this would be the part where there’s a blurred-edge montage of memories and poignant moments. Of the tiny villages and polyglot cities-of-the-future and treacherous jungle roads and transcendent sunsets. Of the people I met: the former Marines and environmentalists and traditional sailors who navigate by stars. The radio DJs and musicians and tattoo artists and factory workers. The government officials and end-of-the-road hippie dropouts and football coaches. The random passersby on streets, in restaurants, at a nondescript convenience store in the Puerto Rican town of Arroyo. The chef who invited me into his restaurant so he could sing me some Bob Dylan (after a round of shots for everyone, of course).

I’m profoundly grateful to everyone who offered insights, travel tips, books, drinks, tours, and/or a place to stay. Thank you all. Thanks so much. Your hospitality and assistance and insights are what made this journey so grand.



Thirty-one thousand miles works out to nearly three times around the perimeter of the Contiguous 48 states. It’s the sort of distance that makes you expect that, in all that time, you’d wind up somewhere with giraffes or castles or, you know, not a United States post office. But there was USPS, every single time. And I never had to change currency or get a visa. I know how this works, and I now know why and how the USA came to be involved with each of these places, yet it still amuses and confuses me to be so far from home yet able to send a postcard for 34 cents.

Maybe it’ll never quite make sense to me. I’m still processing it all, and I shared very little from the road here on the blog (though I’m better at Twitter, FYI). I’m saving the big stories and insights for the book (next year …).

For now, though, I offer you a quick trip recap by the numbers.



Miles flown: More than 31,000

Flights taken: 18, by my best count, but maybe more.

Miles driven: Dunno. But hundreds.

Cars rented: 6

Cars majorly scratched up on narrow mountain roads: 1

Total number of islands on which I set foot: 14 (Saint Thomas, Saint Croix, Saint John, Tutuila, Anu’u, Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kwajalein, Majuro, Puerto Rico, Vieques)

Times I crossed the equator: 2 (to/from American Samoa)

Times I crossed the International Dateline: 2 (to/from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands)

Places visited, in order: US Virgin Islands (territory), American Samoa (territory), Guam (territory), Northern Mariana Islands (commonwealth), Chuuk (airplane layover, so probably shouldn’t count as a visit; freely associated state), Pohnpei (ibid on both counts), Marshall Islands (freely associated state), Puerto Rico (commonwealth).

Number of times I was corrected in the commonwealths for using the word territory: More than a few.

Official distinction between the two: Commonwealths have sliiightly more autonomy (and are not considered colonies by the UN, though the territories are).

Actual distinction, if we’re being honest: Really not much at all.

(And what of the freely associated states? They’re technically autonomous nations, but use US Postal Service, US currency, FEMA disaster relief, and are in many ways quasi-territories.)

Extreme points of the USA visited: southernmost (American Samoa), westernmost (Guam), easternmost (Virgin Islands)

Local cheap beers consumed: Um. Quite a few.

Tasting notes: Cheap beer tastes pretty the same the world over. Pretty sure they're all actually bottled in the same place.

Local pastries consumed: Again, quite a few. Highlights include a coconut-filled doughnut in American Samoa and a guava pastry in Puerto Rico.

Oddest drink consumed: Mavi in Puerto Rico (made with fermented bark; there’s a similar drink called mawbi in the USVI, but it tastes a lot better)

Food I’m most glad I didn’t have to try: Purple sea worms in American Samoa, which were not in season.

Place that most scared me: The former air force base on Tinian, where all the buildings and bunkers and tanks and runways still remain, slowly being taken over by the jungle. I poked my head inside a pitch-dark bunker and something moved and I sprinted the hell away from there.

Teeny-tiny airplanes flown on: 6

Number of flights on the world’s most dangerous regularly-scheduled air route: 2

Windy, potholed, scary-as-hell mountain roads driven: Countless.

Times lost on said roads: A whoooole lot

Long mountain-hikes completed: 2

Territories in which I saw a baseball stadium: 4

Territories in which I saw a cricket ground: 2

Average cost of a gas of gallon: At least 50% more than in Minnesota

Mix of convenience-store food aisles between American and non-American calorific snax: precisely half and half, in each place.

Territories that played a role in World War II: All of them.

Territories that were active battlegrounds in World War II: Guam and Northern Marianas (and American Samoa, in the sense that there was one mortar fired).

Territories with considerable lingering signs of other colonial rulers: 4 (Denmark in the USVI; Spain in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Northern Marianas; Japan in Guam and the Northern Marianas).

Earliest date of acquisition of current territories: 1898 (Guam, Puerto Rico, via the Spanish-American War).

Latest date of official acquisition of current territories: 1978 (Northern Marianas, although they’d been under US rule as part of the United Nations Trust Territories since the end of World War II).

Hats lost: 4

Hats found with my last name on them: 1. On a remote mountain trail in American Samoa, right after my guide was talking about the mischievous local ghosts, and I’m still unnerved by the whole thing.

Guns fired: 1. With Japanese tourists on Guam. There are a bunch of gun ranges where tourists from Japan, China, and Russia go to have the quintessential American experience of dressing up like cowboys and shooting guns.

Hello Kitty gelatos consumed in the shade of a large luxury-good shopping mall (outside the Gucci store, to be specific) immediately after firing a gun: 1

WTF moments: Countless.

Rank of the barbecue on Guam among the best I’ve ever had: Right up there, top two or three. If there were any justice, this would be considered with Kansas City and Memphis and Texas among the nation’s great barbecue hotspots.

Salsa lessons taken: 1

Salsa lessons utterly failed: 1

Unspeakably beautiful sunsets observed: So, so many.

Unspeakably beautiful sunsets interrupted by marching, chanting Marines and a (toy) drone flying overhead: 1

Date by which I have to process all of this and write it into something cohesive and not overly long, and submit a manuscript: June 1st. Wish me luck. 

Postcard from San Juan: The Strange and Wonderful Fiesta de la Calle San Sebastian

I'm at the Fiesta de la Calle San Sebastian in San Juan, standing on the edge of a crowd grinding to some hard-core oontz-oontz electronica, when a guy in a green top hat offers me two little white capsules.

I take them.

Let's be clear: they're Tic Tacs. Or at least I'm pretty sure they are, because he dispenses them from the right container, and he's part of a group branded head-to-toe in the Tic Tac logo, and corporate guerrilla marketing is a common thing here.

But the fact remains, within minutes, I see some weird stuff. A shadow morphs into a bow-and-arrow-toting warrior. Don King appears in the crowd and so does and Elsa from "Frozen," toting a melted Olaf in a plastic bag, reduced to a pool of water, a carrot, and a couple of sticks. Stilt-walking spirits jam to roaming salsa bands, surrounded by cacophonous crowds. When the guy in a chicken mask walks by, I'm relieved by how normal he seems.

The streets are pools of light and competing waves of noise--bongos and "ONE OF US HAS TO STAY SOBER" and oontz-oontz-oontz--crushed into narrow, cobblestoned corridors. From the wrought-iron balcony above us, a woman who looks just like Dame Maggie Smith scowls down at us.

It's all so preposterous, so heady, that for a moment, I wonder, were those REALLY Tic Tacs?

Pretty sure. But I guess I can't be certain.

My new book: THE FORGOTTEN STATES OF AMERICA

This just in: I have a new book coming out! It’ll be published by W.W. Norton … sometime in the future. It's a travelogue about a topic that I really should know more about--and you should, too. But most of us don't have a clue.

The working title is The Forgotten States of America: In Search of the Territories, Islands, and Far-Flung Specks of American Soil. From the book proposal:

When you get right down to it, the United States of America is not merely a nation of states. We are also comprised of those scattered shards of earth and populace that make up our territories. They’re filled with US National Parks and US post offices and people as proudly red-white-and-blue as any Daughter of the American Revolution.

And yet for most Americans, the territories are a mere curiosity. They’re extant but inconsequential, like poppy seeds or the Lifetime Network. Pop quiz: Name the US territories and tell me just one thing about each. Heck, just tell me how many territories there are. No, really. Try it. I’ll wait.

… Exactly.

The Forgotten States of America is a long-overdue introduction to the United States beyond the states, by way of a decidedly different sort of all-American road trip, to the five inhabited territories (there’s your answer: the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa) and other quasi-American points beyond.*

It’s a globe-hopping travelogue—with no visas or currency-exchanging necessary—examining the complicated histories of how the USA acquired each place (spoiler: military action, manifest destiny) and their ongoing role in the American Experiment (spoiler: military preparedness, manifest destiny). Most of all, the book showcases the here-and-now of modern life in the territories, with their diverse mix of millennia-old indigenous groups, opportunity-seeking immigrants, military personnel, and an eclectic array of dropouts, schemers, and dreamers.

Through the lens of my own experiences, I’ll show why the territories matter: How they made the USA what it is today and what they can show us—from their quasi-outsider position—about what it means to be American.

From bustling cities to quiet back roads to Lost World jungles of the we’re-definitely-not-in-the-states-anymore variety, I’ll be your guide as we seek answers and attempt to connect the dots between the territories and our nation of united … places.

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Pictured above, clockwise from top left:

• The Liberation Carnival on Guam, celebrating the decisive July 1944 battle when the USA defeated the Japanese Army, which had captured the island (then a USA territory) in 1941; 
• the sign outside Hollywood Shooting on Guam, where Chinese, Japanese, and Russian tourists go to shoot guns and dress up like cowboys and feel Oh So American; 
• a crew of National Park of American Samoa summer interns taking a break from clearing paths on the Mount Alava trail; 
• probably the world’s most idyllic tropical-wonderland hotel, not telling you where because the owner doesn’t want publicity.

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* Hello, people in Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. I know. I hear ya. “We’re commonwealths, dammit, not territories!” Check. I’ll explain the differences in the book. But that’ll require a bit of explaining, as you know. So for purposes of this post, I'm using “territories” as a catch-all term for “The parts of the United States that are not the states or DC.” Okay? We’re cool?