Kunkel provides an empirically grounded framework for understanding the United States as an imperial power that cultivated recognition through pictures. * Diplomatic History
...a perceptive and well-researched tour of how political leaders realized the utility of the picture and made conscious efforts to take advantage of its power. * American Historical Review
... fascinating and easy to read, well researched and nicely illustrated. Kunkel has made a very good contribution to the still growing field of visual history. * H-Soz-Kult
[This study] provides a cogent history of how US policymakers came to understand the importance of the image to building and consolidating post-Second World War global rule. Offering what he terms 'a sensory history of American empire', Kunkel documents how pictures worked to facilitate American empire building - and then, by the late 1960s, how pictures helped to undermine that very process. * Journal of Contemporary History
I very much enjoyed reading this book-I found it compelling, original in approach, and steeped in fascinating historical detail. It places the symbolic and emotional power of images at the heart of a study into U.S. public diplomacy, but also internationalizes a visual history which takes the spotlight away from the more familiar American domestic media. * Katy Parry, University of Leeds
