A History of America’s Foreign Adventures 0

Stephen Kinzer details a century and a decade of American attempts for regime change, and the side effects thereof.

We don’t like to admit it, or even realize it, but this country has indulged in regime change for a long time. And it has done so uniformly to benefit American economic interests, or, at least, what was seen as American economic interests at the time.

There is an American imperialism; it is imperalism of and for the corporations, rather than imperialism of and for territorial gain, but it is still quite real. We do not like to think of this because it implies that our nation’s motives are not always pure and wholesome.

Sadly, they are not always pure and wholesome.

Live with it. Or do something about it. Or bury your head in the sand and watch the rich get richer while they cause the poor to get poorer.

And, in the long-term, it rebounds against us. Those who wonder, “Why do (insert nationality here) dislike us?” would do well to study our own history.

Any serious student of American history knows this (my field of study is American history–I’ll share my credentials with anyone who wants them). This interview sets it forth quite clearly:

Stephen Kinzer has had a peripatetic tenure at The New York Times. He has reported from more than 50 countries and served as the paper’s bureau chief in Turkey, Germany and Nicaragua.

He employs that far-flung perspective to examine America’s history of regime change in his new book, Overthrow.

Though Iraq is the most recent example of the United States exerting its power to alter another country’s leadership, Kinzer notes that it is certainly not the first. He notes that Iraq “was the culmination of a 110-year period during which Americans overthrew fourteen governments that displeased them for various ideological, political, and economic reasons.” Kinzer discusses the book with Terry Gross.