Discussed in this essay:

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, by Daniel Immerwahr. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 528 pages. $30.

Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli. Knopf. 400 pages. $27.95.

Territory of Light, by Yuko Tsushima. Translated by Geraldine Harcourt. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 192 pages. $23.

Philippine Islands ten-peso silver certificate, 1903, from How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Courtesy Farrar, Straus and Giroux/The Library of Congress

How might an…