America And The Imperialism Of Ignorance

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Power can corrupt a nation as surely as it corrupts an individual. To borrow from Lord Acton's dictum power corrupts & superpower corrupts absolutely. When the Second World War ended the military & economic supremacy of the USA was without parallel in history. American incomprehension of the outside world has been the chief problem in international affairs since the end of World War II. In America & the Imperialism of Ignorance veteran political journalist Andrew Alexander constructs a meticulous case including evidence gleaned from the steady opening up of Soviet archives demonstrating why this is so. From starting the Cold War to revisiting unlearned lessons upon Cuba & Vietnam the Middle East has latterly become the arena in which the American foreign policy approach proved wretchedly consistent. This has created six decades in which war was not the last resort of diplomacy but an early option & where peace & order breaking out was thought to be the natural conclusion of military intervention. Alexander traces this 'shoot-first' tendency from 1945 arguing that on a grand scale the Cold War was a red herring in which the US & her proxies set out to counter a Soviet expansionism that never truly existed & that by the time of the George W Bush era the ' Industrial-Military- Complex' was in office offering little hope of a change in approach.