A sobering read, though Johnson offers a solution to America’s imperial woes: Follow Britain’s lead and jettison both empire...
A paean—perhaps premature, perhaps overdue—for a republic-turned-empire.
For those of a blue-state bent, the midterm election of 2006 may seem to have changed things for the better. But political scientist and liberal commentator Johnson (Blowback, 2000, etc.) isn’t biting. “I believe,” he writes, “that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have led the country into a perilous cul-de-sac, but they did not do it alone and removing them from office will not necessarily solve the problem.” The problem, writ large, is the post–World War II transformation of America into a super-state served by client governments around the world whose citizens, for various reasons, may not be happy about the association. (Hence the “blowback” of which Johnson has written at length elsewhere.) Secretively seeking to further America’s unacknowledged imperial aims, government officials authorize actions that do not befit a republic supposedly ruled by checks and balances. Take former CIA head William Casey, for instance, who “saw political Islam and the Catholic Church as natural allies in covert actions against Soviet imperialism.” It was Casey, in Johnson’s assessment, who was responsible for the United States’ strange-bedfellows alliance with the Islamic fundamentalists who morphed into the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Talk about blowback—but there’s more, the author shows, as he examines imperious American “status of forces agreements” here; the Bush administration’s mishandling of international events there; and the eerie resemblances between our time and that of Augustus Caesar.
A sobering read, though Johnson offers a solution to America’s imperial woes: Follow Britain’s lead and jettison both empire and the world-policeman role. Given the alternatives, it seems an idea worth exploring.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2007
ISBN: 0-8050-7911-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
A magnificent account of a central reality of our times, incorporating deep scientific expertise, broad political and social knowledge, and ethical insight, and Idled with beautifully written biographical sketches of the men and women who created nuclear physics. Rhodes describes in detail the great scientific achievements that led up to the invention of the atomic bomb. Everything of importance is examined, from the discovery of the atomic nucleus and of nuclear fission to the emergence of quantum physics, the invention of the mass-spectroscope and of the cyclotron, the creation of such man-made elements as plutonium and tritium, and implementation of the nuclear chain reaction in uranium. Even more important, Rhodes shows how these achievements were thrust into the arms of the state, which culminated in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race. Often brilliantly, he records the rise of fascism and of anti-Semitism, and the intensification of nationalist ambitions. He traces the outbreak of WW II, which provoked a hysterical rivalry among nations to devise the bomb. This book contains a grim description of Japanese resistance, and of the horrible psychological numbing that caused an unparalleled tolerance for human suffering and destruction. Rhodes depicts the Faustian scale of the Manhattan Project. His account of the dropping of the bomb itself, and of the awful firebombing that prepared its way, is unforgettable. Although Rhodes' gallery of names and events is sometimes dizzying, his scientific discussions often daunting, he has written a book of great drama and sweep. A superb accomplishment.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0684813785
Page Count: 932
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1986
Preaching to the choir, perhaps, but an invigorating sermon all the same.
Zinn-ian conspiracy theories, propounded engagingly and energetically by filmmaker and gadfly Stone and Cold War scholar Kuznick (History/American Univ.).
If you’ve read Howard Zinn—or if, like Jeff Lebowski, the Port Huron Statement is still current news for you—then you’ll have at least some of the outlines of this overstuffed argument. Premise 1: Though the United States may pretend to be a nice, cuddly sort of democracy, it’s the font of much trouble in the world. Premise 2: When, post-9/11, neocons began pondering why it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for the U.S. to become an imperial power, they were missing a train (or Great White Fleet) that had pulled out of the station long ago. Premise 3: We like European fascists better than Asian fascists, as evidenced by propaganda posters depicting our erstwhile Japanese foes as rats and vermin. Premise 4: War is a racket that benefits only the ruling class. Premise 5: JFK knew more than he had a chance to make public, and he was gunned down for his troubles. And so forth. Layered in with these richly provocative (and eminently arguable) theses are historical aperçus and data that don’t figure in most standard texts—e.g., the showdown between Bernard Baruch and Harry Truman (“in a colossal failure of presidential leadership”) that could only lead to a protracted struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for post–World War II dominance. Some familiar villains figure in as well, notably the eminently hissable Henry Kissinger and his pal Augusto Pinochet; the luster of others whom we might want to think of as good guys dims (George H.W. Bush in regard to Gorbachev), while other bad guys (George W. Bush in regard to Saddam Hussein) get worse.
Preaching to the choir, perhaps, but an invigorating sermon all the same.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1351-3
Page Count: 784
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2012
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