In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power (Dispatch Books)
In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power (Dispatch Books)
byAlfred W. McCoy
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In a completely original analysis, prize-winning historian Alfred W. McCoy explores America’s rise as a world power—from the 1890s through the Cold War—and its bid to extend its hegemony deep into the twenty-first century through a fusion of cyberwar, space warfare, trade pacts, and military alliances. McCoy then analyzes the marquee instruments of US hegemony—covert intervention, client elites, psychological torture, and worldwide surveillance.
Peeling back layers of secrecy, McCoy exposes a military and economic battle for global domination fought in the shadows, largely unknown to those outside the highest rungs of power. Can the United States extend the “American Century” or will China guide the globe for the next hundred years? McCoy devotes his final chapter to these questions, boldly laying out a series of scenarios that could lead to the end of Washington’s world domination by 2030.
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Editorial Reviews
In the Shadows of the American Century persuasively argues for the inevitable decline of the American empire and the rise of China. Whether or not one is a believer in American power, the case that Alfred McCoy makes—that much of America’s decline is due to its own contradictions and failures—is a sad one. He provides a glimmer of hope that America can ease into the role of a more generous, more collaborative, if less powerful, world player. Let’s hope that Americans will listen to his powerful arguments." —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Sympathizer
“[A] brilliant and deeply informed must-read for anyone seriously interested in geopolitics, the history of Empire, and the shape of the future.” —New York Journal of Books
"What is the character of this American empire?" Alfred McCoy asks at the outset of this provocative study. His answer not only limns the contours of the American imperium as it evolved during the twentieth century, but explains why its days are quite likely numbered. This is history with profound relevance to events that are unfolding before our eyes.
—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History
"Alfred McCoy offers a meticulous, eye-opening account of the rise, since 1945, and impending premature demise of the American Century of world domination. As the empire’s political, economic, and military strategies unravel under cover of secrecy, America’s neglected citizens would do well to read this book."—Ann Jones, author of They Were Soldiers
"Sobering reading for geopolitics mavens and Risk aficionados alike..." —Kirkus
"McCoy’s detailed, panoramic analysis of the past, present, and future of the American empire covers all spheres of activity including not just land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace, but also the netherworld of covert operations--and seasons all of this with some fascinating personal vignettes. His new book, The Shadows of the American Century, joins the essential short list of scrupulous historical and comparative studies of the United States as an awesome, conflicted, technologically innovative, routinely atrocious, and ultimately hubristic imperial power."—John Dower, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Embracing Defeat, War Without Mercy, and The Violent American Century
“One of our best and most underappreciated historians takes a hard look at the truth of our empire, both its covert activities and the reasons for its impending decline,” —Oliver Stone
"In the Shadows of the American Century is a valuable contribution to geopolitical discourse that draws
important lessons from history."—Foreword Reviews
"McCoy’s latest book, In the Shadow of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, provides an autopsy on a dying empire, which has squandered its moral capital by promoting wide-scale torture and mass surveillance....The end of empire scenarios relayed by McCoy in dark terms could in turn provide positive opportunities for societal change as the necessity for constant war is removed." —The Progressive
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About the Author
Alfred McCoy holds the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
His 2009 book Policing America’s Empire won the Kahin Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. In 2012, Yale University awarded him the Wilbur Cross Medal for work as “one of the world’s leading historians of Southeast Asia and an expert on…international political surveillance.”
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Product details
Series: Dispatch Books
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Haymarket Books (September 12, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608467732
ISBN-13: 978-1608467730
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
More about the author
› Visit Amazon's Alfred W. McCoy Page
Follow
Biography
Alfred W. McCoy holds the Harrington chair of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he teaches classes on the Vietnam War, modern empires, and U.S. foreign policy. Most recently, he is the author of "In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power" (Chicago, 2017). He is also the author of "Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State" (Madison, 2009) which won the Kahin Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.
His best known book, "The Politics of Heroin," stirred controversy when the C.I.A. tried to block its publication back in 1972, but it has remained in print for nearly 50 years, been translated into nine languages, and is generally regarded as the "classic" work on global drug trafficking.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
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Product details
Series: Dispatch Books
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Haymarket Books (September 12, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608467732
ISBN-13: 978-1608467730
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
More about the author
› Visit Amazon's Alfred W. McCoy Page
Follow
Biography
Alfred W. McCoy holds the Harrington chair of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he teaches classes on the Vietnam War, modern empires, and U.S. foreign policy. Most recently, he is the author of "In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power" (Chicago, 2017). He is also the author of "Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State" (Madison, 2009) which won the Kahin Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.
His best known book, "The Politics of Heroin," stirred controversy when the C.I.A. tried to block its publication back in 1972, but it has remained in print for nearly 50 years, been translated into nine languages, and is generally regarded as the "classic" work on global drug trafficking.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
All things change. Empires collapse when they engage in military adventurism and become broke. All empires end the same way.
ByRobert Moriartyon September 13, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
I've read several of Dr. McCoy's book and his reflections on subjects most people are not familiar with are excellent. When he wrote In the Shadows it became the first of what will be a deluge of hundreds of books about The Decline and Fall of the American Empire. While each piece of the book works, it doesn't work together. I suspect that instead of writing it over a long period of time and doing one part at a time, if he had sat down at a keyboard and pounded away for a steady six weeks, the book would have been a lot better and more cohesive.
The American Empire, only recognized as an empire for pretty much the last sixteen years, is in a terminal state of decline recognized by the entire world save the U.S. Where Dr. McCoy suggests there is conflict between China and the U.S. and that contributes to the decline of the U.S. he's seeing the trees and missing the forest. China has nothing to do at all with the decline of the U.S. India and China were the leading economies of the world for eighteen of the last twenty centuries. China is just regaining what they were for centuries.
America has become the laughing stock for the rest of the world. Research shows that the Mainstream Media writing about President Trump is negative 95% of the time. Certainly he leaves a lot to be critical of but clearly the media is engaged in a coup d'etat quite visible if you merely look. Trump needs his twitter thumbs broken but at the same time his former opponent comes out with a book whining about how everyone else was responsible for her defeat. Hillary Clinton was the most despised presidential candidate in American history yet she thinks Americans will still fall for The Russians Did It nonsense. None of this is mentioned and Dr. McCoy believes the Empire will change hands by 2030. I think it already has changed hands and for simple reasons.
The book would be better if Dr. McCoy had used half the number of words. Empires collapse. All of them collapse and they collapse for the same reason. They begin to engage in military adventurism, eventually bankrupt themselves and someone else begin the process of empire building. It happened to Spain, it happened to France, it happened to the USSR, it happened to the UK. All empires collapse right at the time they appear from the outside to be the most powerful. It's in the process today and it simply doesn't matter what China or Russia do, the American Empire is at sunset.
The book covers a lot of subjects I found tedious. We are of the same age, I went to Vietnam and discovered what stupid wars looked like, he worked on the fringe of the Military Industrial Complex. While his coverage of it and the powerful pieces of it are interesting, what is not in the book I think is far more important that what is in the book.
AIPAC controls our national legislature. All freshmen congressmen and women and all new comers to the Senate are requested to sign a document saying they support Israel and the policies put out by AIPAC. If they do, their future is bright and AIPAC will cover the money needed for their reelection. If they refuse to bow to AIPAC, they will find themselves running for office against a well-financed and supported AIPAC candidate. In short, a foreign country has a stranglehold on the American political system. I'm not sure how many times in history a tiny almost meaningless country has that sort of control over an empire, certainly none that I am aware. Americans don't control America. I'm certain that is a large function of our collapse yet Israel is barely mentioned in the book. Israel is the third rail of American life. No one is ever allowed to be critical of their masters and people can write entire books about the decline of America without addressing the bizarre influence that Israel holds over the U.S.
The Iraq war wasn't in America's interest, the war against Libya wasn't in America's interest, Syria wasn't in American interest not to mention Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and any pending war with Iran, Russia or China. The uselessness of America's wars are so obvious that some fat little toad in North Korea realizes the U.S can't possibly attack him, he can defend himself. America only attacks defenseless countries. In Syria the Pentagon's sponsored terrorists found themselves shooting at the CIA's sponsored terrorists.
The chance of the Empire lasting until 2030 is nil. One day soon the debt load of the U.S will prove so large that the Empire will collapse of its own weight. The U.S. need not worry about foreign competition, it has committed suicide already and all that is left is a lifeless husk. Dr. McCoy covers the military part of American power but doesn't fully address the economic issue. When I was in Vietnam what surprised me the most was the cost. Today one U.S. serviceman costs $1 million a year. How long can America afford to fund wars with no purpose fought on behalf of a foreign government?
6 comments| 52 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
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3.0 out of 5 stars
ByRobert Moriartyon September 13, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
I've read several of Dr. McCoy's book and his reflections on subjects most people are not familiar with are excellent. When he wrote In the Shadows it became the first of what will be a deluge of hundreds of books about The Decline and Fall of the American Empire. While each piece of the book works, it doesn't work together. I suspect that instead of writing it over a long period of time and doing one part at a time, if he had sat down at a keyboard and pounded away for a steady six weeks, the book would have been a lot better and more cohesive.
The American Empire, only recognized as an empire for pretty much the last sixteen years, is in a terminal state of decline recognized by the entire world save the U.S. Where Dr. McCoy suggests there is conflict between China and the U.S. and that contributes to the decline of the U.S. he's seeing the trees and missing the forest. China has nothing to do at all with the decline of the U.S. India and China were the leading economies of the world for eighteen of the last twenty centuries. China is just regaining what they were for centuries.
America has become the laughing stock for the rest of the world. Research shows that the Mainstream Media writing about President Trump is negative 95% of the time. Certainly he leaves a lot to be critical of but clearly the media is engaged in a coup d'etat quite visible if you merely look. Trump needs his twitter thumbs broken but at the same time his former opponent comes out with a book whining about how everyone else was responsible for her defeat. Hillary Clinton was the most despised presidential candidate in American history yet she thinks Americans will still fall for The Russians Did It nonsense. None of this is mentioned and Dr. McCoy believes the Empire will change hands by 2030. I think it already has changed hands and for simple reasons.
The book would be better if Dr. McCoy had used half the number of words. Empires collapse. All of them collapse and they collapse for the same reason. They begin to engage in military adventurism, eventually bankrupt themselves and someone else begin the process of empire building. It happened to Spain, it happened to France, it happened to the USSR, it happened to the UK. All empires collapse right at the time they appear from the outside to be the most powerful. It's in the process today and it simply doesn't matter what China or Russia do, the American Empire is at sunset.
The book covers a lot of subjects I found tedious. We are of the same age, I went to Vietnam and discovered what stupid wars looked like, he worked on the fringe of the Military Industrial Complex. While his coverage of it and the powerful pieces of it are interesting, what is not in the book I think is far more important that what is in the book.
AIPAC controls our national legislature. All freshmen congressmen and women and all new comers to the Senate are requested to sign a document saying they support Israel and the policies put out by AIPAC. If they do, their future is bright and AIPAC will cover the money needed for their reelection. If they refuse to bow to AIPAC, they will find themselves running for office against a well-financed and supported AIPAC candidate. In short, a foreign country has a stranglehold on the American political system. I'm not sure how many times in history a tiny almost meaningless country has that sort of control over an empire, certainly none that I am aware. Americans don't control America. I'm certain that is a large function of our collapse yet Israel is barely mentioned in the book. Israel is the third rail of American life. No one is ever allowed to be critical of their masters and people can write entire books about the decline of America without addressing the bizarre influence that Israel holds over the U.S.
The Iraq war wasn't in America's interest, the war against Libya wasn't in America's interest, Syria wasn't in American interest not to mention Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and any pending war with Iran, Russia or China. The uselessness of America's wars are so obvious that some fat little toad in North Korea realizes the U.S can't possibly attack him, he can defend himself. America only attacks defenseless countries. In Syria the Pentagon's sponsored terrorists found themselves shooting at the CIA's sponsored terrorists.
The chance of the Empire lasting until 2030 is nil. One day soon the debt load of the U.S will prove so large that the Empire will collapse of its own weight. The U.S. need not worry about foreign competition, it has committed suicide already and all that is left is a lifeless husk. Dr. McCoy covers the military part of American power but doesn't fully address the economic issue. When I was in Vietnam what surprised me the most was the cost. Today one U.S. serviceman costs $1 million a year. How long can America afford to fund wars with no purpose fought on behalf of a foreign government?
6 comments| 52 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
---
3.0 out of 5 stars
Informative, but also captured by the very thinking it decries
ByAthanon November 14, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
The clue is in the title: the author, professor Alfred W. McCoy, believes that what he calls the American “Empire” has lasted about a century and is drawing to an end. This is his account of why and how this will come about.
If it’s Elon Musk take-no-prisoners optimism about the future that you’re looking for, you’ve clearly come to the wrong place. The author dedicates a full chapter to explain why: he’s the baby boomer son of a WWII veteran who never demobilized, never allowed the scars of war to heal, joined the “best and the brightest” in the space program / cold war and lost his marriage and life to his coping mechanism, alcohol. The author himself, perhaps in reaction to his father’s fate, is quite literally the man who wrote the (1972) book on how the CIA picked up where the French had left off and conducted the lion’s share of the opium trade during the Vietnam War.
The yardstick for this book, then, is not really Kennedy’s work on empires. An academic treaty this ain’t. Rather, you should compare it with works of the more personal, more “conspiratorial” genre, such as John Perkins’ “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.” If that’s your cup of tea, you’ve definitely come to the right place. It’s not mine, but I powered through it regardless, and I actually managed to learn a whole lot from it, much as I could not quite fight off the idea of John Goodman’s character in the Big Lebowski narrating it in my head.
Probably the key idea in this opus is Halford Mackinder’s “Geographical Pivot of History,” a view expressed in 1904, according to which world domination is based on the control of Eurasia. The nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first century are seen and interpreted through the prism of this premise. So Germany, Russia and China are viewed as the guys sitting in the pound seats, with the naval powers of Great Britain, Japan and the US looking to encircle, contain and undermine them from the “axial” position in the seas and, latterly, space, but also from up close, for example via the expedient of radicalized Islam, which Zbigniew Brzezinski is “credited” with originally weaponizing.
You don’t need to buy the theory. You can plough through the book merely by accepting that the last couple centuries in the military history of the planet have been dominated by people who did. That’s not terribly far-fetched and as good a premise as any. It’s tyrants who go to war, in the main, rather than democratically elected leaders, and some type of domination has got to be what they’re after. The harder-to-accept premise (the author would call me an “American exceptionalist” for saying so) is that the US thinks along those lines. On the other hand, people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld (never mentioned in the book, that’s me talking here) do not arise in a vacuum.
There’s a full chapter on how America became a colonial power via the conquest of the Philippines. The controversial claim in this chapter is that the US had never had secret services or surveillance skills of any kind, but developed them to stay on top at the Philippines and then imported them to the US to conduct, in the runup to WWI, the surveillance of its own German-speaking citizens, which was at the time deemed necessary. Thus, the author asserts, was the secret service born.
The chapter that follows is the ubiquitous in the literature chapter regarding how, if this isn’t an Empire we’re talking about, it’s making a pretty good job of behaving like one, what with 800 bases around the world, tens of covert operations taking place around the globe at the same time and scores of regimes toppled worldwide and replaced by “our S.O.B.’s,” in Ike Eisenhower’s words. An exhaustive list of such tyrants is provided. Significantly, the author does not care to give any credit to Eisenhower for flagging the risks borne by the military industrial complex. Rather, he very much considers him to be an important architect.
The covert netherworld of the CIA comes under the microscope next, with two case studies: the support given to the Contras in Nicaragua and our adventures in Afghanistan. I actually thought this was an unsatisfying and deeply muddled chapter. The morale of the story is that we had success in Nicaragua because we were swimming with the tide of the drug trade, we had initial success in Afghanistan again when we were swimming with the tide of the drug trade and against the Russians and our efforts were met with failure when we last intervened in 2003 when we fought the tide of the drug trade. Well, sorry, I don’t get it. First, there’s zilch to celebrate from any success we may have had in doing business with the rather reprehensible Contras and second, since when does the “principled” approach measure itself on success? What is success when there is no great geopolitical enemy to defeat? Was it the Russians or the Chinese who defeated us in Afghanistan? Were we right to go to Nicaragua? Were we right to get involved in Afghanistan? Once or both times?
This brings me to the main criticism of the book: the author actually is fully captured by the very framework he laments. He can only think like one of the scheming geopolitical plotters he decries, but (not to sound like Jack Nicholson) he then feels entitled to criticize them; indeed, he alternates between criticizing their ethics and criticizing their results.
Three chapters follow, one each on what the author considers to be “secret weapons” employed by the American empire:
1. A chapter on global surveillance, starting with the good work of one Captain Ralph Van Deman in the Phlippines and later in California, how this segued into McCarthyism and its apotheosis in the Obama era of total surveillance, as revealed by Edward Snowden, one of 13,000 people with access to every phonecall and email you were ever part of (and none of them on the payroll of the foreign powers we’re meant to be protected from, needless to say!)
2. A chapter on the topic of torture, on which the author has written other works. If I’d never heard of waterboarding vomit my life would not have been any worse, but this was a reminder of the fact that the US has not done its stature in the world any great favors by cultivating people who are happy to employ torture to meet their goals. Also, the point is made that we (the domestically democratic “west”) find ourselves morally bankrupt when these people turn against us, because we put them there in the first place. And that if it continues to act along these lines (for example in Egypt where it was happy to install Al-Sisi following a brief spell in government for the Muslim Brotherhood) the US will eventually suffer the fate of the British Empire, which at some point discovered it had exhausted the supply of local tyrants who would do its bidding.
3. A, frankly mesmerizing, chapter on all the most recent space-based weapons systems that are currently under development. As a guy who would check into the library to study but would instead end up reading back issues of Aviation Weekly, I must say this was right up my alley. Again, though, I was left unclear as to whether the author was celebrating or decrying the development of all these systems. (For the record, I found them cool, but that’s the geek in me talking)
The final section of the book is dedicated to the current bogeyman in the great geopolitical game, the rising power that is China and her apparently unstoppable effort to claim back the South China Sea. (Funny how that is deemed unacceptable, but it’s rather axiomatic in this book that China should be prevented at all costs of controlling the South China Sea)
There’s a chapter on the three “grandmasters” of the great geopolitical game (Elihu Root, Zbigniew Brzezinsky and Mr. “pivot to Asia” himself, the Hawaian-born and Jakrata-raised Barack Obama) and a chapter on the five ways the final reckoning for the American Empire could come to a head, with a fair few pages dedicated to, erm… global warming.
Yeah, it kind of peters out this book…
1 comment| 11 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
---
1.0 out of 5 stars
ByAthanon November 14, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
The clue is in the title: the author, professor Alfred W. McCoy, believes that what he calls the American “Empire” has lasted about a century and is drawing to an end. This is his account of why and how this will come about.
If it’s Elon Musk take-no-prisoners optimism about the future that you’re looking for, you’ve clearly come to the wrong place. The author dedicates a full chapter to explain why: he’s the baby boomer son of a WWII veteran who never demobilized, never allowed the scars of war to heal, joined the “best and the brightest” in the space program / cold war and lost his marriage and life to his coping mechanism, alcohol. The author himself, perhaps in reaction to his father’s fate, is quite literally the man who wrote the (1972) book on how the CIA picked up where the French had left off and conducted the lion’s share of the opium trade during the Vietnam War.
The yardstick for this book, then, is not really Kennedy’s work on empires. An academic treaty this ain’t. Rather, you should compare it with works of the more personal, more “conspiratorial” genre, such as John Perkins’ “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.” If that’s your cup of tea, you’ve definitely come to the right place. It’s not mine, but I powered through it regardless, and I actually managed to learn a whole lot from it, much as I could not quite fight off the idea of John Goodman’s character in the Big Lebowski narrating it in my head.
Probably the key idea in this opus is Halford Mackinder’s “Geographical Pivot of History,” a view expressed in 1904, according to which world domination is based on the control of Eurasia. The nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first century are seen and interpreted through the prism of this premise. So Germany, Russia and China are viewed as the guys sitting in the pound seats, with the naval powers of Great Britain, Japan and the US looking to encircle, contain and undermine them from the “axial” position in the seas and, latterly, space, but also from up close, for example via the expedient of radicalized Islam, which Zbigniew Brzezinski is “credited” with originally weaponizing.
You don’t need to buy the theory. You can plough through the book merely by accepting that the last couple centuries in the military history of the planet have been dominated by people who did. That’s not terribly far-fetched and as good a premise as any. It’s tyrants who go to war, in the main, rather than democratically elected leaders, and some type of domination has got to be what they’re after. The harder-to-accept premise (the author would call me an “American exceptionalist” for saying so) is that the US thinks along those lines. On the other hand, people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld (never mentioned in the book, that’s me talking here) do not arise in a vacuum.
There’s a full chapter on how America became a colonial power via the conquest of the Philippines. The controversial claim in this chapter is that the US had never had secret services or surveillance skills of any kind, but developed them to stay on top at the Philippines and then imported them to the US to conduct, in the runup to WWI, the surveillance of its own German-speaking citizens, which was at the time deemed necessary. Thus, the author asserts, was the secret service born.
The chapter that follows is the ubiquitous in the literature chapter regarding how, if this isn’t an Empire we’re talking about, it’s making a pretty good job of behaving like one, what with 800 bases around the world, tens of covert operations taking place around the globe at the same time and scores of regimes toppled worldwide and replaced by “our S.O.B.’s,” in Ike Eisenhower’s words. An exhaustive list of such tyrants is provided. Significantly, the author does not care to give any credit to Eisenhower for flagging the risks borne by the military industrial complex. Rather, he very much considers him to be an important architect.
The covert netherworld of the CIA comes under the microscope next, with two case studies: the support given to the Contras in Nicaragua and our adventures in Afghanistan. I actually thought this was an unsatisfying and deeply muddled chapter. The morale of the story is that we had success in Nicaragua because we were swimming with the tide of the drug trade, we had initial success in Afghanistan again when we were swimming with the tide of the drug trade and against the Russians and our efforts were met with failure when we last intervened in 2003 when we fought the tide of the drug trade. Well, sorry, I don’t get it. First, there’s zilch to celebrate from any success we may have had in doing business with the rather reprehensible Contras and second, since when does the “principled” approach measure itself on success? What is success when there is no great geopolitical enemy to defeat? Was it the Russians or the Chinese who defeated us in Afghanistan? Were we right to go to Nicaragua? Were we right to get involved in Afghanistan? Once or both times?
This brings me to the main criticism of the book: the author actually is fully captured by the very framework he laments. He can only think like one of the scheming geopolitical plotters he decries, but (not to sound like Jack Nicholson) he then feels entitled to criticize them; indeed, he alternates between criticizing their ethics and criticizing their results.
Three chapters follow, one each on what the author considers to be “secret weapons” employed by the American empire:
1. A chapter on global surveillance, starting with the good work of one Captain Ralph Van Deman in the Phlippines and later in California, how this segued into McCarthyism and its apotheosis in the Obama era of total surveillance, as revealed by Edward Snowden, one of 13,000 people with access to every phonecall and email you were ever part of (and none of them on the payroll of the foreign powers we’re meant to be protected from, needless to say!)
2. A chapter on the topic of torture, on which the author has written other works. If I’d never heard of waterboarding vomit my life would not have been any worse, but this was a reminder of the fact that the US has not done its stature in the world any great favors by cultivating people who are happy to employ torture to meet their goals. Also, the point is made that we (the domestically democratic “west”) find ourselves morally bankrupt when these people turn against us, because we put them there in the first place. And that if it continues to act along these lines (for example in Egypt where it was happy to install Al-Sisi following a brief spell in government for the Muslim Brotherhood) the US will eventually suffer the fate of the British Empire, which at some point discovered it had exhausted the supply of local tyrants who would do its bidding.
3. A, frankly mesmerizing, chapter on all the most recent space-based weapons systems that are currently under development. As a guy who would check into the library to study but would instead end up reading back issues of Aviation Weekly, I must say this was right up my alley. Again, though, I was left unclear as to whether the author was celebrating or decrying the development of all these systems. (For the record, I found them cool, but that’s the geek in me talking)
The final section of the book is dedicated to the current bogeyman in the great geopolitical game, the rising power that is China and her apparently unstoppable effort to claim back the South China Sea. (Funny how that is deemed unacceptable, but it’s rather axiomatic in this book that China should be prevented at all costs of controlling the South China Sea)
There’s a chapter on the three “grandmasters” of the great geopolitical game (Elihu Root, Zbigniew Brzezinsky and Mr. “pivot to Asia” himself, the Hawaian-born and Jakrata-raised Barack Obama) and a chapter on the five ways the final reckoning for the American Empire could come to a head, with a fair few pages dedicated to, erm… global warming.
Yeah, it kind of peters out this book…
1 comment| 11 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?
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1.0 out of 5 stars
i found the book a monumental disappointment. Assuming for the moment that everything he writes ...
Bydaniel bergon October 25, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
i found the book a monumental disappointment. Assuming for the moment that everything he writes about the "shadows" of recent American history is correct (recite here the familiar list: Dulles' CIA in Guatamala; propping up right wing dictators in S. America; esp. Pinochet's Chile; Bay of Pigs; cuban missle crisis; installing the Shah in Iran; etc); then Viet Nam. That's it. Ugly Amerian history; certainly nothing here we havent heard repeatedly. What's obviously missing here is any context: Stalin, gulags, Mao's 10 year Cultural Revolution and the export of that revolution to the rest of the Third World (as it was then called). Che Guevara in L America and Angola. All figments of right wing CIA imagination?
But wait: doesnt he refer to ". . .the American conquest of cholera, malaria and yellow fever " (p. 48) the UN,IMF, World Bank, GATT (p. 51). Alas, these are all "for the maintenance of its expansive hegemony . . .(which) allowed its burgeoning multinational corporations to operate profitably." And so it goes for another 200 pages.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Bydaniel bergon October 25, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
i found the book a monumental disappointment. Assuming for the moment that everything he writes about the "shadows" of recent American history is correct (recite here the familiar list: Dulles' CIA in Guatamala; propping up right wing dictators in S. America; esp. Pinochet's Chile; Bay of Pigs; cuban missle crisis; installing the Shah in Iran; etc); then Viet Nam. That's it. Ugly Amerian history; certainly nothing here we havent heard repeatedly. What's obviously missing here is any context: Stalin, gulags, Mao's 10 year Cultural Revolution and the export of that revolution to the rest of the Third World (as it was then called). Che Guevara in L America and Angola. All figments of right wing CIA imagination?
But wait: doesnt he refer to ". . .the American conquest of cholera, malaria and yellow fever " (p. 48) the UN,IMF, World Bank, GATT (p. 51). Alas, these are all "for the maintenance of its expansive hegemony . . .(which) allowed its burgeoning multinational corporations to operate profitably." And so it goes for another 200 pages.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The American Empire
ByRandolph Eckon December 28, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Yale University awarded McCoy the Wilbur Cross Medal for work as "one of the world's leading historians of Southeast Asia and an expert on...international political surveillance” With that in mind, I eagerly began reading the book. I can see why he won this medal; the book is an incredible wealth of detailed information. The author notes that “Step-by-step, topic-by-topic, decade-after-decade, I would slowly accumulate sufficient understanding of the parts to try to assemble the whole – the overall character of US global power and the forces that would contribute to its perpetuation or decline.” He sees that state surveillance has been an integral part of American society for far longer that we might imagine.
The American rise to global power can be described by three distinct phases. The first is the period 1898 to 1935 where we see an experience with colonial rule in the Caribbean and Pacific. The second is the sudden ascent to global domination in the decades after WWII, and finally, “a bid to extend that hegemony deep into the twenty-first century through a fusion of cyberwar, space warfare, trade pacts, and military alliances.” The author sees that after the Cold War, clandestine operations had become a critical instrument for power projection. In fact, it created a fourth domain (the other three are the domains of land, sea, and air) of warfare he calls the covert netherworld. He further divides the “clandestine operations” into three categories, i.e., aerospace, cyberspace, and covert netherworld.
It is interesting to note that at their peaks, empires can subordinate other states, but this power is surprisingly vulnerable to erosion or slipping away. Just look at Europe. After four centuries of imperial expansion that encompassed half of humanity, the empires there were just erased in the years 1947 to 1975 giving way to nearly a hundred new nations. In this regard it is interesting to note how the CIA monitored the loyalties of leaders on four continents using coups, bribery, and covert operation to control and even change nettlesome national leaders. The author elaborates on actions in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In chapter three, we are introduced to the “covert netherworld.” This is the clandestine domain that has been central to the rise of US global power. Land and sea are ancient arenas for warfare, airpower arose around WWI, but this netherworld emerged as a critical force during the Cold War. The recurrent reliance on covert operations transformed the secret services from the margins of state power into major players in international politics. It was the entanglement of these operations with the criminal underworld that formed the covert netherworld. The author covers operations in Central America and Afghanistan.
The authors sees the military information structure going through three phases: “manual intelligence collection during the Philippine War, computerized data management in the war in Vietnam, and integrated robotic systems in Afghanistan and Iraq.” A domestic example of this would be the FBI’s counterintelligence programs which conducted 2370 illegal operations from 1960 to 1974, which a senate committee branded a “sophisticated vigilante operation.” Concerning the robotic systems mentioned, we see the use today of electronic surveillance, biometric identification, and unmanned aerial vehicles of increasing complexity. What I found shocking is that with the marriage of the NSA’s decryption technology to the Internet’s data hubs, the agency’s 37,000 employees need just one official to monitor 200,000 people – quite an efficiency ratio. Continuing on, the author discusses torture, the military-industrial complex, and the formation of “wonder weapons.” He sees in the future “a robotic command structure capable of coordinating operations across all combat domains – space, cyberspace, sky, sea, and earth.”
In part III of the book, the author discuss the dynamics of US decline. While the US was mired down in the desert sands waging war, at great cost in lives and money, China was using the trillions of trade surplus dollars from the US to forge an economic integration of the Eurasian landmass. He identifies three grandmasters of geopolitics: Elihu Root, Zbigniew Brzezinski , and Barack Obama and discusses their impact on the world stage. He sees shifts in the tenor of strategic alliances with various countries as a central aspect of a waning of US power. We are then given five scenarios for the end of the American century. He leaves us with some sobering thoughts for the future.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
ByRandolph Eckon December 28, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
Yale University awarded McCoy the Wilbur Cross Medal for work as "one of the world's leading historians of Southeast Asia and an expert on...international political surveillance” With that in mind, I eagerly began reading the book. I can see why he won this medal; the book is an incredible wealth of detailed information. The author notes that “Step-by-step, topic-by-topic, decade-after-decade, I would slowly accumulate sufficient understanding of the parts to try to assemble the whole – the overall character of US global power and the forces that would contribute to its perpetuation or decline.” He sees that state surveillance has been an integral part of American society for far longer that we might imagine.
The American rise to global power can be described by three distinct phases. The first is the period 1898 to 1935 where we see an experience with colonial rule in the Caribbean and Pacific. The second is the sudden ascent to global domination in the decades after WWII, and finally, “a bid to extend that hegemony deep into the twenty-first century through a fusion of cyberwar, space warfare, trade pacts, and military alliances.” The author sees that after the Cold War, clandestine operations had become a critical instrument for power projection. In fact, it created a fourth domain (the other three are the domains of land, sea, and air) of warfare he calls the covert netherworld. He further divides the “clandestine operations” into three categories, i.e., aerospace, cyberspace, and covert netherworld.
It is interesting to note that at their peaks, empires can subordinate other states, but this power is surprisingly vulnerable to erosion or slipping away. Just look at Europe. After four centuries of imperial expansion that encompassed half of humanity, the empires there were just erased in the years 1947 to 1975 giving way to nearly a hundred new nations. In this regard it is interesting to note how the CIA monitored the loyalties of leaders on four continents using coups, bribery, and covert operation to control and even change nettlesome national leaders. The author elaborates on actions in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In chapter three, we are introduced to the “covert netherworld.” This is the clandestine domain that has been central to the rise of US global power. Land and sea are ancient arenas for warfare, airpower arose around WWI, but this netherworld emerged as a critical force during the Cold War. The recurrent reliance on covert operations transformed the secret services from the margins of state power into major players in international politics. It was the entanglement of these operations with the criminal underworld that formed the covert netherworld. The author covers operations in Central America and Afghanistan.
The authors sees the military information structure going through three phases: “manual intelligence collection during the Philippine War, computerized data management in the war in Vietnam, and integrated robotic systems in Afghanistan and Iraq.” A domestic example of this would be the FBI’s counterintelligence programs which conducted 2370 illegal operations from 1960 to 1974, which a senate committee branded a “sophisticated vigilante operation.” Concerning the robotic systems mentioned, we see the use today of electronic surveillance, biometric identification, and unmanned aerial vehicles of increasing complexity. What I found shocking is that with the marriage of the NSA’s decryption technology to the Internet’s data hubs, the agency’s 37,000 employees need just one official to monitor 200,000 people – quite an efficiency ratio. Continuing on, the author discusses torture, the military-industrial complex, and the formation of “wonder weapons.” He sees in the future “a robotic command structure capable of coordinating operations across all combat domains – space, cyberspace, sky, sea, and earth.”
In part III of the book, the author discuss the dynamics of US decline. While the US was mired down in the desert sands waging war, at great cost in lives and money, China was using the trillions of trade surplus dollars from the US to forge an economic integration of the Eurasian landmass. He identifies three grandmasters of geopolitics: Elihu Root, Zbigniew Brzezinski , and Barack Obama and discusses their impact on the world stage. He sees shifts in the tenor of strategic alliances with various countries as a central aspect of a waning of US power. We are then given five scenarios for the end of the American century. He leaves us with some sobering thoughts for the future.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
U.S. Empire: Not Fade Away
ByDavid Swansonon October 29, 2017
Format: Paperback
I wanna tell you how it’s gonna be.
But I really cannot. Prediction is just vastly more difficult than action, which makes it even odder that so much of the former goes on, and so little of the latter.
I just read In The Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power by Alfred McCoy. It’s one of the better books I’ve read in a long time on the history and current state of U.S. militarism. It’s excellent on the truly ridiculous (my word, not the book’s) chess analogy that has driven imperialist thinking, on the outcomes of backing dictators as puppets, and on the abuses of secret agencies — including their role in the drug trade in places like Nicaragua and Afghanistan.
McCoy gives us a good history of the surveillance state and its roots in the U.S. war on the Philippines, plus a fairly familiar account of U.S. torture over the decades, as well as a survey of new death technologies including space drones.
But I’m not convinced that a theme of declining empire ties all this material together. It seems to me that torture and drug dealing and proxy wars and weapons development can go on for centuries or end swiftly — unless the environmental damage they do and nuclear apocalyptical risk they entail limit their lifespan.
McCoy sees genius and success in the militarism behind Iran-Contra in contrast to miserable failure in the U.S. handling of opium production in Afghanistan. Perhaps. But U.S. actions in Latin America produced a World Court ruling, prison sentences, and the strongest opposition to U.S. empire on earth, whereas the U.S. war on Afghanistan has produced indefinite tolerance of endless killing and dying, no matter what additional crimes accompany it.
In the Shadows ends with analysis of China as a rival to the U.S., plus some truly laughable glorification of Barack Obama as a grand master anti-war imperialist (though stating that this comes at the expense of democracy in the U.S.). McCoy frames all of this as an international contest with the goal being to win, and he predicts horrible times ahead as empire ends, openly stating that his predictions are all based on the assumption that the U.S. public “cannot or will not take steps to slow the erosion of their global position.”
But what if they/we were to take steps to change our government’s approach to the world, including its focus on a “global position”? Britain did well for itself by curtailing its imperialism, not by slowing imperialism’s demise. I recommend following/chasing a book like In the Shadows with one like Authentic Hope by Jack Nelson-Palmeyer in which people are seen as having potential agency as democratic participants in shaping the future.
Authentic Hope is a book that has a chapter called “Good Riddance to Empire.” Indeed. And good riddance to imperial thinking. And to hell with the idea that China having a “larger” economy than the United States is bad news; China has more people than the United States too! It should have a larger economy for godsake.
Nelson-Palmeyer’s book focuses on things that should be done: create sustainable practices, control population size, improve local agriculture, reduce inequality, reduce militarism. We should consider, Nelson-Palmeyer suggests, the incredible — almost unfathomable — good that could be done for the people of the United States and the rest of the earth by redirecting the funding that now goes into militarism.
I’d like to see more proposals that people in the United States come to identify their interests with those of all other people, and fewer ideas on how to maintain a level of superiority — which I predict can only lead to an inferior outcome for everybody.
Well love is love and not fade away.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
ByDavid Swansonon October 29, 2017
Format: Paperback
I wanna tell you how it’s gonna be.
But I really cannot. Prediction is just vastly more difficult than action, which makes it even odder that so much of the former goes on, and so little of the latter.
I just read In The Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power by Alfred McCoy. It’s one of the better books I’ve read in a long time on the history and current state of U.S. militarism. It’s excellent on the truly ridiculous (my word, not the book’s) chess analogy that has driven imperialist thinking, on the outcomes of backing dictators as puppets, and on the abuses of secret agencies — including their role in the drug trade in places like Nicaragua and Afghanistan.
McCoy gives us a good history of the surveillance state and its roots in the U.S. war on the Philippines, plus a fairly familiar account of U.S. torture over the decades, as well as a survey of new death technologies including space drones.
But I’m not convinced that a theme of declining empire ties all this material together. It seems to me that torture and drug dealing and proxy wars and weapons development can go on for centuries or end swiftly — unless the environmental damage they do and nuclear apocalyptical risk they entail limit their lifespan.
McCoy sees genius and success in the militarism behind Iran-Contra in contrast to miserable failure in the U.S. handling of opium production in Afghanistan. Perhaps. But U.S. actions in Latin America produced a World Court ruling, prison sentences, and the strongest opposition to U.S. empire on earth, whereas the U.S. war on Afghanistan has produced indefinite tolerance of endless killing and dying, no matter what additional crimes accompany it.
In the Shadows ends with analysis of China as a rival to the U.S., plus some truly laughable glorification of Barack Obama as a grand master anti-war imperialist (though stating that this comes at the expense of democracy in the U.S.). McCoy frames all of this as an international contest with the goal being to win, and he predicts horrible times ahead as empire ends, openly stating that his predictions are all based on the assumption that the U.S. public “cannot or will not take steps to slow the erosion of their global position.”
But what if they/we were to take steps to change our government’s approach to the world, including its focus on a “global position”? Britain did well for itself by curtailing its imperialism, not by slowing imperialism’s demise. I recommend following/chasing a book like In the Shadows with one like Authentic Hope by Jack Nelson-Palmeyer in which people are seen as having potential agency as democratic participants in shaping the future.
Authentic Hope is a book that has a chapter called “Good Riddance to Empire.” Indeed. And good riddance to imperial thinking. And to hell with the idea that China having a “larger” economy than the United States is bad news; China has more people than the United States too! It should have a larger economy for godsake.
Nelson-Palmeyer’s book focuses on things that should be done: create sustainable practices, control population size, improve local agriculture, reduce inequality, reduce militarism. We should consider, Nelson-Palmeyer suggests, the incredible — almost unfathomable — good that could be done for the people of the United States and the rest of the earth by redirecting the funding that now goes into militarism.
I’d like to see more proposals that people in the United States come to identify their interests with those of all other people, and fewer ideas on how to maintain a level of superiority — which I predict can only lead to an inferior outcome for everybody.
Well love is love and not fade away.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
I have not read a better constructed analysis of this emerging dynamic of warfare anywhere ...
ByWilliam N. Gibsonon September 18, 2017
Format: Paperback
Professor Al McCoy’s newest book “In the Shadows of the American Century” is a tour de force chronicling the dismantling of the American Empire. It is both conventional in what you might expect from an esteemed historian, a carefully crafted full spectrum analysis diagnosing the systemic and structural aspects of rise and decline, generously mixed with fascinating examinations of the unexpected. I found his discussion on the impact and legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, especially interesting.
“In the Shadows" is wide ranging. The first part looks at the geography of global geopolitics and how the US skillfully combined aspects of previous models of empire and power projection in attaining its commanding heights. Our geographical isolation has been fortuitous as modern weapons systems have extended their lethality. At the dawn of the “American Century” (the concept coined by Henry Luce in Life magazine in 1941) the US had about 6% of the global population but controlled half of the world’s assets and wealth, and our global position benefited tremendously in avoiding the carnage that beset much of the rest of the developed world during WWII. How to “maintain this position of disparity” in the words of George Kennan in 1948, would be the key to extending the American Century into the 21st century. How to project our dominance over the “World Island,” the Eurasian landmass, would be the compulsion of US global managers. Taking center stage in making sense of this dilemma is Sir Halford Mackinder, another unexpected from McCoy, who is the star and glue of the first part of the book. The analysis in this section is compelling and refreshing.
The section on America’s development of the “triple canopy” of pervasive surveillance systems and the extension of domination into outer space is impressive and a bit mind blowing. I have not read a better constructed analysis of this emerging dynamic of warfare anywhere else. McCoy’s talents in illuminating the intersection of technology and power in this new dimension of warfare is a valuable service to those of us, like me, who still see war through the lens of the 20th century.
But the best part of the book is the intro titled “US Global Power and Me.” Part autobiography and part introduction to the themes of the book it reads like a spy novel. It’s wonderfully understated tone and gripping details is worth the price of admission alone.
Ranging from the meta conceptions of Sir Halford Mackinder to the actualization of those ideas in policy by the likes of Brzezinski “In the Shadows” is a brilliant analysis of the US empire. While it covers much territory, including outer space, McCoy is at the top of his game. The book is ambitious in scope and richly rewarding. “In the Shadows” should be exposed to the widest audience.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
ByWilliam N. Gibsonon September 18, 2017
Format: Paperback
Professor Al McCoy’s newest book “In the Shadows of the American Century” is a tour de force chronicling the dismantling of the American Empire. It is both conventional in what you might expect from an esteemed historian, a carefully crafted full spectrum analysis diagnosing the systemic and structural aspects of rise and decline, generously mixed with fascinating examinations of the unexpected. I found his discussion on the impact and legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, especially interesting.
“In the Shadows" is wide ranging. The first part looks at the geography of global geopolitics and how the US skillfully combined aspects of previous models of empire and power projection in attaining its commanding heights. Our geographical isolation has been fortuitous as modern weapons systems have extended their lethality. At the dawn of the “American Century” (the concept coined by Henry Luce in Life magazine in 1941) the US had about 6% of the global population but controlled half of the world’s assets and wealth, and our global position benefited tremendously in avoiding the carnage that beset much of the rest of the developed world during WWII. How to “maintain this position of disparity” in the words of George Kennan in 1948, would be the key to extending the American Century into the 21st century. How to project our dominance over the “World Island,” the Eurasian landmass, would be the compulsion of US global managers. Taking center stage in making sense of this dilemma is Sir Halford Mackinder, another unexpected from McCoy, who is the star and glue of the first part of the book. The analysis in this section is compelling and refreshing.
The section on America’s development of the “triple canopy” of pervasive surveillance systems and the extension of domination into outer space is impressive and a bit mind blowing. I have not read a better constructed analysis of this emerging dynamic of warfare anywhere else. McCoy’s talents in illuminating the intersection of technology and power in this new dimension of warfare is a valuable service to those of us, like me, who still see war through the lens of the 20th century.
But the best part of the book is the intro titled “US Global Power and Me.” Part autobiography and part introduction to the themes of the book it reads like a spy novel. It’s wonderfully understated tone and gripping details is worth the price of admission alone.
Ranging from the meta conceptions of Sir Halford Mackinder to the actualization of those ideas in policy by the likes of Brzezinski “In the Shadows” is a brilliant analysis of the US empire. While it covers much territory, including outer space, McCoy is at the top of his game. The book is ambitious in scope and richly rewarding. “In the Shadows” should be exposed to the widest audience.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential for thinking about America's future
ByAsia Khufon September 30, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
Three things make In the Shadows one of the best books I’ve read on contemporary international politics.
First, it’s future-oriented. The question that ties the book together is “What does America do now?” McCoy is a first-rate historian, and there is a lot about the past. But the review of the past is directed to encouraging Americans—leaders, readers, and citizens—to grasp what we can and should do in the challenging decade ahead. It’s not a call to action so much as an overview that could help make intelligent action possible.
Second, perspectival shifts give depth and nuance to the panorama McCoy paints. The book begins with the “US Global Power and Me,” a personal, anecdotal account, and then shifts radically to geopolitical theory: a surprising turn, but one which gives insightful architecture to the book as a whole. Plenty of history follows, but narrative is always in the service of eliciting basic patterns in imperial America’s conduct, which are in turn related to the historical dynamics of empire. For example, we find out plenty of details regarding America’s use and promulgation of torture, but also learn about the role torture has played in shoring up and unwinding empires. A good combination of specifics and generalities.
Third, the book speaks to a lot of different people, not only history buffs and armchair policy experts but also servants of the imperium at the Pentagon, agencies, think tanks, and so on. It works because McCoy, like Andrew Bacevich, is exposing follies and abuses out of patriotic motives. He wants America’s rivalry with China to work to the benefit of America, and hence the world. The result is a book that is controversial without being ideological.
McCoy is pragmatic, not dogmatic. He insists on the practical need for a strategy commensurate with America’s power and goals, and gives Obama surprisingly high marks for at least trying to pivot in a direction that responds to the challenge of Chinese ascendancy. The author’s avoidance of pat conclusions will dissatisfy readers who want to be given answers and stimulate those willing to seek out answers themselves.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
ByAsia Khufon September 30, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
Three things make In the Shadows one of the best books I’ve read on contemporary international politics.
First, it’s future-oriented. The question that ties the book together is “What does America do now?” McCoy is a first-rate historian, and there is a lot about the past. But the review of the past is directed to encouraging Americans—leaders, readers, and citizens—to grasp what we can and should do in the challenging decade ahead. It’s not a call to action so much as an overview that could help make intelligent action possible.
Second, perspectival shifts give depth and nuance to the panorama McCoy paints. The book begins with the “US Global Power and Me,” a personal, anecdotal account, and then shifts radically to geopolitical theory: a surprising turn, but one which gives insightful architecture to the book as a whole. Plenty of history follows, but narrative is always in the service of eliciting basic patterns in imperial America’s conduct, which are in turn related to the historical dynamics of empire. For example, we find out plenty of details regarding America’s use and promulgation of torture, but also learn about the role torture has played in shoring up and unwinding empires. A good combination of specifics and generalities.
Third, the book speaks to a lot of different people, not only history buffs and armchair policy experts but also servants of the imperium at the Pentagon, agencies, think tanks, and so on. It works because McCoy, like Andrew Bacevich, is exposing follies and abuses out of patriotic motives. He wants America’s rivalry with China to work to the benefit of America, and hence the world. The result is a book that is controversial without being ideological.
McCoy is pragmatic, not dogmatic. He insists on the practical need for a strategy commensurate with America’s power and goals, and gives Obama surprisingly high marks for at least trying to pivot in a direction that responds to the challenge of Chinese ascendancy. The author’s avoidance of pat conclusions will dissatisfy readers who want to be given answers and stimulate those willing to seek out answers themselves.
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---
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Best Books of the Year--On Geopolitics, Where the World Is Heading, and Who We Are as Americans
ByIntellectual Capital Chappleon December 27, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
This is a stunner. The statistics are worth the price of the book. McCoy thinks at the 100,000 foot level, and though you may not always agree, he is one of those people who may be more right than "you" are. His knowledge of dirty tricks at the highest level is unparalleled. His view that the American empire ended (he doesn't quibble or say "may have ended") with the moronic invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the rock-solid insight that leads to the rest. Another is that empire and democracy don't go well together, a statement often attributed to Mark Twain or Andrew Carnegie, but one McCoy proves with many examples you won't read about in the establishment press of all sides. His knowledge of drugs fueling Reagan's Contra's or Obama/Bush/Trump's Afghanistan is unparalleled. This is, after all, the author who wrote that classic of the Vietnam War, "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia." America has done some very bad things, and McCoy knows them all and from the street level, though he is one of the great--and underrated--American historians of our time. He is especially dazzling with his knowledge of advanced warfare, satellites, cybertechnology and more. I would argue that California/Cambridge/West Coast entrepreneurism and high tech education may keep us afloat and that the economic response to climate change may sail the US back to favorable and sensible shoals. He might argue that the witless war on the Blue States by Trump's new kleptocracy will hamstrung any optimistic trends coming from Silicon Valley, San Diego, and Boston. Certainly Trump's war on America power (McCoy's concern) and American prosperity (more mine) have taken another very recent hit by the Republican tax realignment which will savage the very Blue State economic engines that keep America's place in the world. Thieves don't think ahead . . . But read McCoy and judge for yourself. One of the best books on geopolitics to come along in a very long while.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
ByIntellectual Capital Chappleon December 27, 2017
Format: Paperback|Verified Purchase
This is a stunner. The statistics are worth the price of the book. McCoy thinks at the 100,000 foot level, and though you may not always agree, he is one of those people who may be more right than "you" are. His knowledge of dirty tricks at the highest level is unparalleled. His view that the American empire ended (he doesn't quibble or say "may have ended") with the moronic invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the rock-solid insight that leads to the rest. Another is that empire and democracy don't go well together, a statement often attributed to Mark Twain or Andrew Carnegie, but one McCoy proves with many examples you won't read about in the establishment press of all sides. His knowledge of drugs fueling Reagan's Contra's or Obama/Bush/Trump's Afghanistan is unparalleled. This is, after all, the author who wrote that classic of the Vietnam War, "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia." America has done some very bad things, and McCoy knows them all and from the street level, though he is one of the great--and underrated--American historians of our time. He is especially dazzling with his knowledge of advanced warfare, satellites, cybertechnology and more. I would argue that California/Cambridge/West Coast entrepreneurism and high tech education may keep us afloat and that the economic response to climate change may sail the US back to favorable and sensible shoals. He might argue that the witless war on the Blue States by Trump's new kleptocracy will hamstrung any optimistic trends coming from Silicon Valley, San Diego, and Boston. Certainly Trump's war on America power (McCoy's concern) and American prosperity (more mine) have taken another very recent hit by the Republican tax realignment which will savage the very Blue State economic engines that keep America's place in the world. Thieves don't think ahead . . . But read McCoy and judge for yourself. One of the best books on geopolitics to come along in a very long while.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A nuanced analysis from one of the best historians today on a topic that impacts everyone
ByZachon February 11, 2018
Format: Paperback
Bump this to the top of your reading list as Professor Alfred McCoy has done Americans and foreigners a great service in putting pen to paper on such an important, engaging topic: the modern American empire. Through elegant prose and immense detail, McCoy succinctly shows that the modern American empire is the result of a coalescence of many factors, including the Cold War, American imperialism in the Philippines, covert intervention, and cyber technology. His arguments reflect upon decades of U.S. and world history in a different light, showing that sometimes something viewed as a failure actually ended up contributing to the growth of the America's footprint in the world. There is perhaps no better example of this than the Vietnam war, a debacle that McCoy presents as the groundwork for some of Washington's most used air technologies today. He also devotes a lot of ink into the Afghanistan failure and the U.S.'s bleak history with torture.
Make no mistake, this is not the ramblings of a lauded academic in the later stages of his career. Rather, this is a nuanced view at a critical time in America's history from someone whose personal history has given him the tools to effectively write about such a broad subject, a subject many fail to analyze in its entirety. Finally, McCoy uses the past 100+ years of U.S. history to show how today's events might shape the next few decades. If millennials put the phones down for a minute to look at the world around them, what kind of world are they going to see? He discusses policy from Obama and Trump to do something most historians do not -- try and predict the future. With the knowledge of the last 100 years in mind, you'll be sure to read newspapers and watch the news with a different analytical cap. Perhaps you'll read an article about higher education in the U.S. and the expansion of Chinese soft power and begrudgingly accept that McCoy's pessimistic predictions seem on pace to come true. If nothing else, when you're drinking beers with Joe and Dave after work, at least you'll be able to offer a fresh take on the impacts of Trump's positions on trade, college funding, and military intervention.
ByZachon February 11, 2018
Format: Paperback
Bump this to the top of your reading list as Professor Alfred McCoy has done Americans and foreigners a great service in putting pen to paper on such an important, engaging topic: the modern American empire. Through elegant prose and immense detail, McCoy succinctly shows that the modern American empire is the result of a coalescence of many factors, including the Cold War, American imperialism in the Philippines, covert intervention, and cyber technology. His arguments reflect upon decades of U.S. and world history in a different light, showing that sometimes something viewed as a failure actually ended up contributing to the growth of the America's footprint in the world. There is perhaps no better example of this than the Vietnam war, a debacle that McCoy presents as the groundwork for some of Washington's most used air technologies today. He also devotes a lot of ink into the Afghanistan failure and the U.S.'s bleak history with torture.
Make no mistake, this is not the ramblings of a lauded academic in the later stages of his career. Rather, this is a nuanced view at a critical time in America's history from someone whose personal history has given him the tools to effectively write about such a broad subject, a subject many fail to analyze in its entirety. Finally, McCoy uses the past 100+ years of U.S. history to show how today's events might shape the next few decades. If millennials put the phones down for a minute to look at the world around them, what kind of world are they going to see? He discusses policy from Obama and Trump to do something most historians do not -- try and predict the future. With the knowledge of the last 100 years in mind, you'll be sure to read newspapers and watch the news with a different analytical cap. Perhaps you'll read an article about higher education in the U.S. and the expansion of Chinese soft power and begrudgingly accept that McCoy's pessimistic predictions seem on pace to come true. If nothing else, when you're drinking beers with Joe and Dave after work, at least you'll be able to offer a fresh take on the impacts of Trump's positions on trade, college funding, and military intervention.
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