The Cold War: A World History

I figured I'd better read an official history book from a well-established & respected old white man. (Making father proud). It was interesting seeing how this war impacted every aspect of international development.

It's pretty appalling that he has all the time in the world to list every bad thing China & Russia did but only gave us 2 sentences about McCarthyism and not even a singular mention of COINTELPRO, or the fact that the US gave chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, which were then used on civilians.

If the author was going for even-handed, I'd give him a C.

After reading way too damn many books about US imperialism during the 20th century and its connection to the Cold War, I've come to the conclusion that virtually none of our aggressive actions were at all justified and are completely indefensible.

Hiroshima&Nagasaki. Vietnam. Guatemala. Iran. MK Ultra. Red Scares. McCarthyism. Operation Cyclone. COINTELPRO. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Lumumba. Jakarta. The “War on Drugs”. Iraq.

It's all connected in this tangled web with one singular philosophy at its very core: the centralization of wealth and power. The most repugnant, immoral, insane things done by the US government under the guise of ‘protecting its citizens' were actually done to benefit and protect those in power at the expense to the powerless. Alas.