Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to IraqLiberals are always yammering on about how screwed up US foreign policy is. If you want to know what they're talking about read this book.
Kinzer details the US's involvement in overthrowing the government of fourteen different nations. He starts with Hawaii in 1893 and ends with Iraq in 2003. Along the way Kinzer demonstrates how US business interests always seem to come out ahead in these interventions, often doing better than the population under the new regime.
While this book deals with historical events it's not a work of history in the strictest sense. Kinzer neglects the first century of American intervention, ignores other imperialist powers, and fails to make an overarching argument for why US history has unfolded this way.
Why this book is progressive/liberal: One of the biggest and most substantial criticisms progressives level against the US is its hypocritical foreign policy. For a nation that supposedly embraces democracy, rule of law, and liberty we sure spend a lot of time and effort denying those ideas to people in other nations. Progressives argue that our foreign policy should reflect our values. We should support democratic governments over autocratic governments, and we should side with the people in civil wars instead of the tyrants.
BUY THIS BOOK
Buy the Kindle version of this book: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
No comments:
Post a Comment