Product Description

Is the United States a force for democracy? In this classic and unique volume that answers this question, William Blum serves up a forensic overview of U.S. foreign policy spanning sixty years. Remarks from the previous edition: "Far and away the best book on the topic."-Noam Chomsky "A valuable reference for anyone interested in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy."- Choice "I enjoyed it immensely."-Gore Vidal "The single most useful summary of CIA history."-John Stockwell "Each chapter I read makes me more and more angry."-Helen Caldicott "A very useful piece of work, daunting in scope, important."-Thomas Powers, author and Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist "A very valuable book. The research and organization are extremely impressive."-A.J. Langguth, author and former New York Times bureau chief For those who want the details on our most famous -actions (Chile, Cuba, Vietnam, to name a few), and for those who want to learn about our lesser-known efforts (France, China, Bolivia, Brazil, for example), this book provides a window on what our foreign policy goals really are. William Blum is the author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20767 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 500 pages

About the Author
William Blum's latest book is "Freeing the World To Death: Essays on the American Empire." He lives in Washington, DC.

Customer Reviews

"the greatest strategists"
As head of the US State Department planning staff in 1948 George Kennan wrote: "we have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population... Our real task... is to... maintain this position of disparity... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming... We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better." After a careful reading of Killing Hope one should be able to grasp the significance of the praise heaped on Kennan by the current US Secretary of State as she spoke of his "profound influence" on her, his "inspiration to generations of men", and his legacy as "one of the greatest strategists in the history of American foreign policy." I honestly don't know which is more disgusting, scumbags like Kennan and Rice or goose-stepping, flag-waving one-star-reviewers.

Important Read
I admit that I am a bit of a conspiracy theorist, but you need not be one in order to be shocked at some of the information contained within. The reason is that many of the sources referenced are mainstream media. Not that this makes the information true necessarily, but it certainly provides a dose of credibility to other more abstruse historical accounts.

The Best Reference Out
The book does a great job showing the irony in the double-standards the US has used in its foreign policy since WWII, as State department officials confessed to (shown in the last chapter). This also makes for a more entertaining read than most other books on the topic. All together though, the book's use of these contradictions are just used to propel a central idea the author has, as stated in his introduction - that the communist threat was largely imagined, either intenionally at times or unintentionally, and that the US media failed to rationalize the discrepancies of state doctrines. So, if you believe this, you'll enjoy the book, otherwise, you'll find it a "worthless left-wing propanganda."

The book does take for granted a large degree of knowledge by the reader. That is, the author only explains US activities (as the book's title plainly states) in particular regions, but general history between time periods and other nations' influences are usually omitted. So if your history isn't up to par it may be a little confusing keeping track of changing foreign attitudes and policies.