The tragedy of US involvement in Puerto Rico, tracing the decades of economic and political exploitation that led to the debt crisis, hobbled the hurricane recovery efforts, and forced the island into a state of despair.
8th December 2025
Paperback
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Summary
The tragedy of US involvement in Puerto Rico, tracing the decades of economic and political exploitation that led to the debt crisis, hobbled the hurricane recovery efforts, and forced the island into a state of despair.
Description
An "urgent, fascinating, and impassioned" (Daniel Immerwahr) history of Puerto Rico's 122 years as a colony of the United States
Since its acquisition by the United States in 1898, Puerto Rico has served as a testing ground for the most aggressive and exploitative US economic, political, and social policies. In Fantasy Island, Ed Morales traces how, over the years, Puerto Rico has served as a colonial satellite, a dumping ground for US manufactured goods, and a corporate tax shelter, becoming a blank canvas for mercenary experiments in disaster capitalism on the front lines of climate change. Morales explores the machinations of financial and political interests in both the United States and Puerto Rico that have led to these abuses, and the resistance efforts of Puerto Rican artists and activists. Featuring a new epilogue bringing the book up-to-date on recent political and cultural developments, Fantasy Island puts forward a powerful argument that the only way to stop Puerto Rico from being bled dry is to let Puerto Ricans take control of their own destiny, going beyond the statehood-commonwealth-independence debate to complete decolonization.Critic Reviews
"[An] eye-opening economic and political history... [Morales's] technical yet impassioned polemic will persuade those with a keen interest in the subject."--Publishers Weekly
"Ambitious, intimidating, and beautiful...This book will be particularly important to readers with a connection to Puerto Rico and useful and thought-provoking to anyone else seeking to understand capitalism's past, present, and future."--Library Journal
"Ed Morales has put together a compelling indictment of U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico, based on journalistic and academic sources as well as his personal experiences as a New York-born Puerto Rican who cares deeply about his ancestral homeland. His work is an engaging, compassionate, well-documented, and crisply written analysis of the political, economic, and demographic downturn of the Island, after more than a decade of economic recession and almost two years since hurricane Maria."--Jorge Duany, author of Puerto Rico
"The hurricanes, the debt, the depopulation. Ed Morales has written an urgent, fascinating, and impassioned portrait of Puerto Rico, the world's oldest colony."--Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire
About the Author
Ed Morales is the author of Latinx, The Latin Beat, and Living in Spanglish. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Village Voice, and The Nation, among others. He is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. He lives in New York City.
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8th December 2025
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