A Laughable Empire: The US Imagines the Pacific World, 1840–1890.

"A Laughable Empire: The US Imagines the Pacific World, 1840–1890" by Todd Thompson explores American comedy about Pacific Islanders in nineteenth-century periodicals. Thompson argues that these jokes both served and resisted US expansion in the Pacific, while acknowledging the risk of flattening differences among Pacific Islander cultures. The book analyzes how these jokes relied on stereotypes that conflated Pacific Islanders with Black people and Native Americans, presenting them as either familiar or fundamentally other. Thompson also examines the circulation and variations of these jokes, highlighting their racist and imperialist attitudes, moments of ambivalence, and resistance to US claims of global authority. [Extracted from the article]