A review by cj_jones
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer

4.0

Kinzer, a reporter for the New York Times, was referenced as one of the administration's regime change cheerleaders in "Manufacturing Consent", so it was a little surprising to find him here. This book is a good place to start learning about American imperialism, focusing on the most blatant cases and on the people who make up the events to give them some sense of proximity to us and our own lives. I knew the broad strokes of what we were looking at; these stories fill in details, point out familiar faces, and compare and contrast within and between the three stages of our direct intervention and colonialism, and also stick with the stories long enough to point out how our policies and our actions in these countries affected them in the longer term. Afghanistan, in particular, went back to the British occupation but couldn't go any further forward than the publication date. I don't think Kinzer would have been too surprised by the way things finished up there this year.