The Insular Empire is supported by the the guidance, encouragement, and generosity of many people. We would like to thank our presenting PBS station - WLIW in New York, our major production funder - Pacific Islanders in Communications, and our many advisors, for all of their help with this project. We would also like to thank Bob Kendrick for his generosity and commitment to public television, as well as the Skaggs Foundation, the Pacific Pioneer Fund, and the Open Meadows Foundation. Finally, we offer thanks to the boards and staff of the Northern Mariana Islands Council for the Humanities and the Guam Humanities Council, and to all the people we have met on Guam and in the Northern Marianas, without whose help this film would never be possible.

"Because of [Horse Opera's] exhaustive efforts to contact and communicate with a wide variety of persons, their project has received the blessings not only of academics, but also of Chamorro elders, politicians, activists, and other community members. . . I can assure you that this project comes to you with the highest possible levels of historical accuracy, as well as with the highest standards of intellectual and cultural integrity." - Anne Perez Hattori, Assistant Professor of Pacific History, University of Guam

"An utterly important endeavor and angle, this documentary is not only the first of its kind, but one that promises to lift the individual islands out of their insular and isolated positionings in mainstream political and historical scholarship and understanding -- and articulate the complicated, vexed, but also inspiring but largely ignored stories of the American Pacific territories in relation to the American political and cultural experience." - Vince Diaz, Assistant Professor of American Studies, University of Michigan

"[This film] has the potential to help change the way viewers think about their nation's past and, particularly, about the history of American imperialism. There is only a small body of scholarly work on the Pacific sphere -- most of it relating not to the territories covered in the project but the higher profile island of Hawaii -- and the body of popularly accessible material is even smaller. Thus, The Insular Empire is especially timely and significant." - Rick Halpern, Bissell-Heyd Professor of American Studies, University of Toronto

Most on the American mainland know precious little about Guam, [or] the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.... The histories that bind together the United States and these entities are important in and of themselves, and because of their disruptions to the principles upon which the United States government rests. These shared histories, and the contemporary situations that are their products, give rise to crucial questions about identity, residency, citizenship, nationhood, democracy, and the cross-cultural or transregional application of American constitutional law. These are questions that need to be more fully acknowledged and explored by all concerned. I believe quite strongly that the documentary The Insular Empire will promote, appropriately and effectively, this engagement. - David Hanlon, Professor of History, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

The Insular Empire... is both bold and timely. Students in the American classroom are eager to explore the world outside the fifty states and impatient with narratives of perfected Europeanism and isolationist exceptionalism, which do little to explain the complexity and diversity of contemporary society and global political economy.... Vanessa and Amy are well placed to provide the careful and powerful visual record that can demonstrate the imperial nature of the United States' engagement with the world outside its borders and its implication thereby in the long history of uneven relationships between colonial governments and subject peoples. - Angus Lockyer, Assistant Professor of Japanese History, Wake Forest University