Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
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- ISBN13: 9780805082401
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Product Description
”Detailed, passionate and convincing . . . [with] the pace and grip of a excellent thriller.”–Anatol Lieven, The New York Times Book Review
“Regime change” did not start with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an vital part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the toppling of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its political and economic goals. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 is but the latest example of the dangers inherent in these operations.
In Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer tells the tales of the audacious politicians, spies, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose foreign regimes. He details the three eras of America’s regime-change century–the imperial era, which brought Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Honduras under America’s sway; the cold war era, which employed covert action against Iran, Guatemala, South Vietnam, and Chile; and the invasion era, which saw American troops toppling governments in Grenada, sou’wester, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Kinzer clarifies why the U.S. government has pursued these operations and why so many of them have had disastrous long-term consequences, building Overthrow a cautionary tale that serves as an urgent warning as the United States seeks to define its role in the modern world.
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This is really a well done history of US involvement in the overthrow of a dozen or so governments around the world. The insight into the right causes of the overthrows is pretty appealing and the characters involved are also appealing.
I (personally) could do lacking the leader’s ideology. He’s a small harsh on these operations in hindsight in pointing out their unintended consequences. It is much simpler to nitpick the outcomes than make a choice at the time and the leader only criticizes lacking really pointing out what else could have been done.
The leader is also more than a small anti-corporate. Personally….I reflect its fine for my country to intervene if a foreign country is talking about nationalizing a US company.
So, if you’re just a history buff….delight in the brilliant research the leader has done and just skim through the liberal garbage in the analysis. If you’re a liberal who thinks that
America and its companies are the source of everything ill in the world….YOU will like it.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Despite a number of books about America’s interventions abroad, this book was passed off on a right tale of all the American interventions since the late 1800s. Beggining with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and the Spanish American war this book brings the tale up to the present. But there are at least half a dozen major problems here which ruin what would have been an insightful and worthwhile book.
1) The book is overtly well loved. It uses racist terms for whites, it is overly simplistic in its terminology and has not evena semblance of being unbiased or even honest in its assessments. For example it praises the Hawaiian Monoarchy and the Islamists in Iran. The problem is, just because America engages in skullduggery, doesnt mean persons who oppose America are ‘excellent’, sometimes they are also equally terrible or worse.
2)There is not ONE map in the entire book, and its a book that deals with over 30 different countries. What a loss.
3)There is an over-focus on America as protagonist. For instance one takes away a feeling that the America made Pinochet and that Fidel was a saint. Once again, why must persons who America opposes be made into saints in order to write a book about America? Just becuase America opposed Saddam doesnt mean he never gassed kurds.
Sometimes in the name of hating America book that otherwise might have had some lasting use and past sugnificance become simply biased and weak, and in this case such inventiveness was thrown out the window in the favour of catering to bush-haters, europeans, islamists and flashiness.
Seth J. Frantzman
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
The product is what I expected. It arrived on time and in the condition advertised.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
What had the potential to be a useful and enlightening book on US foreign policy is small more than a mad and historically inaccurate diatribe against the US and its foreign policy. Kinzer makes copious misleading statements, uses quotes out of context, and assumes that all US foreign policy ventures are dictated by selfish economic interests in all-purpose and by corporate robberbarons specifically. Virtually all his villains are Republicans. Oddly, he puts Grover Cleveland on a pedestal as an anti-imperialist—the same guy who signed the Dawes Act into law that led to the loss of vast stretches of land owned by Native Americans.
The book is generally well written and people from the far left of the political spectrum will no doubt like his anti-US venom and manipulation of history. A more balanced monograph that placed people and events within a broader context would have been much more useful and intellectually honest. US foreign policy ventures have not been perfect, but we are not Satan either. For a contrasting view of US foreign policy ventures I recommend Max Boot’s The Savage Wars of Peace.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Adage that regime change has been done poorly in the past is not the same thing as adage it is impossible to do it well in the future. I remain unconvinced that Hawaii, Puerto Rico, sou’wester, or Grenada would have been better off had America never intervened.
Even America’s support for Mujahedin in Afghanistan and the subsequent toppling of the Taliban are open as abject failures – I reflect the results in both of these interventions are more mixed than the leader is willing to concede.
The leader contends that many of the leaders America deposed weren’t Communist, merely ardent Nationalists (as if jingoism isn’t just as treacherous to human rights or individual liberty.)
I certainly agree that America has been too keen to resort to regime change, especially during the first half of the 20th Century, but I wouldn’t be so willing to discard it as a tool of American FP. Done thoughtfully, with sober recognition of its limitations, it can make positive outcomes.
No single approach fits all cases. This is as right for diplomacy as it is for military action.
I recommend reading this book for the history, but draw your own conclusions based on more than just this source.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5