Laith
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change is a bit of mixed bag, a piece of journalism that was better received by its contemporaries than it has a right to be by the modern reader. This is a not-quite comprehensive overview of US interventionist actions that resulted in regime change starting with Hawaii (1893) and concluding with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (2003). While still a critical piece this trades away a lot of the nuance and depth surrounding these subjects for the sake of accessibility.
Overthrow is more of an introductory text than anything else: the prose is exceptionally clear, well paced and easy to understand. Read this for the names, the dates, and a basic understanding of the motivations behind why our country raises its sword. I'll give Kinzer credit because he's generally evenhanded and calls the play correctly when it comes to the "why", naming the big 2 motivations clearly: capitalist interest and missionary/paternalist racism. For nearly 150 years the US opinion of much of the rest world has been that it is uncivilized and in desperate need of democracy and high yield explosives; that is the main take away here. He correctly points out that in most cases of US intervention we have overthrown governments that had principals similar to ours and replaced them with autocratic regimes that made us less safe in the long run, those changes made to serve the purposes of capital and not the people.
However, the closer he gets to contemporary events, the less reliable the commentary. Generally this is true of most things as they are divorced from hindsight and the facts get obscured by the fog of war. In the case of Overthrow, it means Kinzer is unwilling to totally criticize US overreach in Iraq and does not contemplate theoretical alternatives to the status quo (going as far as to suggest military rule of Afghanistan). This text is deeply guilty of oversimplifying geopolitics, (which is admittedly a grossly complex subject) leading the reader to make many systemic assumptions about the way the world works which go largely unchallenged. In the interest of tying up each chapter with a bow, Kinzer provides summaries and counterfactuals that I'll generously describe as shallow and un-nuanced. A common thread across the whole book is that some interventions were worth it, taking sides without really explaining why or how he arrived at his conclusions.
There is one major sticking point that needs to be addressed: the complicity of American press and media conglomerates in all of these events. A true ironic chord is struck as Kinzer takes time to highlight the role of propagandist journalism in much of the Latin American coups of the 20th century while personally participating in that same system in his professional journalistic career. It's plain that Kinzer wants to support some of the interventions mentioned in this book, and that carries over to his more modern reporting on current imperialist interventions (Syria, Ukraine) for the NYT. He has written extensive pieces that defend practices/abuses perpetrated by all manner of autocrats- at a minimum he is guilty of lacking skepticism in his coverage. Whether he sides with Washington, or Moscow, or Damascus he does take sides in the press, and he does it at the behest of a media conglomerate which profits from upholding the status quo. As in the case of the US occupation of Nicaragua the media's choices of topics and issues, the unquestioned premises on which that coverage rests remains in the hands of corporate interests and are constrained to reinforce the state's ideology.
If you don't know why Hawaii is a state, or that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens then this is a book you should read, but I don't recommend that anyone stop here, particularly if they are interested in the subject of imperialism or US covert actions.
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change is a bit of mixed bag, a piece of journalism that was better received by its contemporaries than it has a right to be by the modern reader. This is a not-quite comprehensive overview of US interventionist actions that resulted in regime change starting with Hawaii (1893) and concluding with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (2003). While still a critical piece this trades away a lot of the nuance and depth surrounding these subjects for the sake of accessibility.
Overthrow is more of an introductory text than anything else: the prose is exceptionally clear, well paced and easy to understand. Read this for the names, the dates, and a basic understanding of the motivations behind why our country raises its sword. I'll give Kinzer credit because he's generally evenhanded and calls the play correctly when it comes to the "why", naming the big 2 motivations clearly: capitalist interest and missionary/paternalist racism. For nearly 150 years the US opinion of much of the rest world has been that it is uncivilized and in desperate need of democracy and high yield explosives; that is the main take away here. He correctly points out that in most cases of US intervention we have overthrown governments that had principals similar to ours and replaced them with autocratic regimes that made us less safe in the long run, those changes made to serve the purposes of capital and not the people.
However, the closer he gets to contemporary events, the less reliable the commentary. Generally this is true of most things as they are divorced from hindsight and the facts get obscured by the fog of war. In the case of Overthrow, it means Kinzer is unwilling to totally criticize US overreach in Iraq and does not contemplate theoretical alternatives to the status quo (going as far as to suggest military rule of Afghanistan). This text is deeply guilty of oversimplifying geopolitics, (which is admittedly a grossly complex subject) leading the reader to make many systemic assumptions about the way the world works which go largely unchallenged. In the interest of tying up each chapter with a bow, Kinzer provides summaries and counterfactuals that I'll generously describe as shallow and un-nuanced. A common thread across the whole book is that some interventions were worth it, taking sides without really explaining why or how he arrived at his conclusions.
There is one major sticking point that needs to be addressed: the complicity of American press and media conglomerates in all of these events. A true ironic chord is struck as Kinzer takes time to highlight the role of propagandist journalism in much of the Latin American coups of the 20th century while personally participating in that same system in his professional journalistic career. It's plain that Kinzer wants to support some of the interventions mentioned in this book, and that carries over to his more modern reporting on current imperialist interventions (Syria, Ukraine) for the NYT. He has written extensive pieces that defend practices/abuses perpetrated by all manner of autocrats- at a minimum he is guilty of lacking skepticism in his coverage. Whether he sides with Washington, or Moscow, or Damascus he does take sides in the press, and he does it at the behest of a media conglomerate which profits from upholding the status quo. As in the case of the US occupation of Nicaragua the media's choices of topics and issues, the unquestioned premises on which that coverage rests remains in the hands of corporate interests and are constrained to reinforce the state's ideology.
If you don't know why Hawaii is a state, or that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens then this is a book you should read, but I don't recommend that anyone stop here, particularly if they are interested in the subject of imperialism or US covert actions.