American Purgatory

Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration

How America’s “prison imperialism” exported mass incarceration around the globe, from a rising young historian

In this explosive new book, historian Benjamin D. Weber reveals how the story of American prisons is inextricably linked to the expansion of American power around the globe.

A vivid work of hidden history that spans the wars to subjugate Native Americans in the mid-nineteenth century, the conquest of the Western territories, and the creation of an American Empire in Panama, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, American Purgatory reveals how “prison imperialism”—the deliberate use of prisons to control restive, subject populations—is written into our national DNA, leading to our modern era of mass incarceration. Weber also uncovers a surprisingly rich history of prison resistance, from the Seminole Chief Osceola to Assata Shakur—one that invites us to rethink the scope of America’s long freedom struggle.

Weber’s brilliantly documented text is supplemented by original maps highlighting the global geography of prison imperialism, as well as illustrations of key figures in this history by the celebrated artist Ayo Y. Scott. For readers of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, here is a bold new effort to tell the full story of prisons and incarceration—at home and abroad—as well as a powerful future vision of a world without prisons.

American Purgatory book cover

  • American Purgatory is a tour-de-force that brings together the history of racial exploitation and colonialism over four centuries. It illuminates the logics and practices that ultimately led to contemporary mass incarceration, as well as the various forms of opposition that consistently emerged in response to punitive developments. In doing so, Benjamin Weber provides a critical new framework that can help us envision a more equitable and just world.

    Elizabeth Hinton, author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America

  • For years now, I have turned to Benjamin Weber’s work to more fully make sense of American history. He is an historian who has transformed my understanding of the relationship between racism, imperialism, and incarceration. He is a scholar who writes with both moral urgency and intellectual clarity. American Purgatory will forever change how we understand the rise of mass incarceration. It will forever change how we understand this country.

    Clint Smith, author of How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

  • Benjamin Weber’s must read, American Purgatory, makes clear that truly understanding the depth of today’s carceral crisis, means recognizing it as a global apparatus—one that has always informed how this nation maintains white supremacy as well manages acts of resistance and self-determination not simply within its own borders, but around the world. And because we can no longer imagine that the logics of punishment are rooted in domestic policy alone, we can also no longer imagine that the work of achieving true justice can be rooted in anything less than international struggle.

    Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy.

  • Masterfully researched and written, American Purgatory takes the history of mass incarceration to an entirely new level, as it connects centuries of American expansion and conquest on the North American continent and overseas to the planning logic and actual practices of prison systems. Benjamin Weber’s global perspective on “prison imperialism” as well as prisoners’ resistance has produced a field-defining book.

    Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Harvard University

  • This outstanding book exposes the surprising connection between America’s current age of mass incarceration and the imperial prisons of the past. Showing how racism and colonialism shaped government efforts to incapacitate people who resisted the incursions of U.S. foreign policy, Weber highlights the urgency of understanding the relation between decolonization, antiracism, and the possibility of prison abolition.

    Vincent Brown, author of Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War

  • Benjamin Weber’s American Purgatory is a tour de force of original research and astute analysis. It shows how racialized criminalization and incarceration have been the key mechanisms of state building at home and imperialism abroad, emphasizing how racialized surveillance and imprisonment have functioned in concert to create a national and global racist order. Yet Weber also delineates how a rich history of activist resistance endures in the present grounded in intersectional analyses of the links that connect racism, imperialism, and capitalism.

    George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

  • A detailed and passionate account of the practice and responses to U.S. prison imperialism in the past and... an intellectual grounding for those engaged in the unfinished work of decolonization.

    V. P. Franklin, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History and Education, University of California, Riverside.

  • In a time of continued mass incarceration within the U.S., Weber’s book is an important contribution to strengthening our prison abolition and anti-colonial movements and our refusal to be defined by criminalization.

    Pam Fadem, California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Portraits by ayo Y. Scott

REVIEWS

“American Purgatory is the sort of book reactionary politicians and organizations are trying to ban. It’s full of evidence that many of the attitudes and conditions prevalent in this country from its founding were racist, bigoted, even genocidal.”

The Arts Fuse

“…a compelling, well-illustrated case for how American methods of controlling those deemed unruly have been guided by an ideology of white supremacy.”

Kirkus Reviews

“In prisons, archives and libraries in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Panama and even at Harvard University, Benjamin Weber spent 10 years learning how today’s prison system in the United States began centuries ago outside of its borders.”

UC Davis Research News

“The imperial roots of the American prison cannot be unseen, and once seen impart a sense of moral responsibility. American Purgatory calls us to that brave solidarity.”

Los Angeles Review of Books

“Weber’s book reveals how “prison imperialism”—the deliberate use of prisons to control restive, subject populations—is written into our national DNA, extending through to our modern era of mass incarceration.”

The Appeal

“Weber offers here a history of American prison ideology that blazes with interconnection... It’s an ugly past that is increasingly being put front and centre by talented scholars…”

Oxford Today

“Weber connects the histories of mass incarceration and American imperialism in his wide-ranging and innovative debut. . . It’s an eye-opening and fresh perspective on a pair of hot-button issues.”

Publishers Weekly