Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
Written by Stephen Kinzer
Narrated by Michael Prichard
4/5
()
About this audiobook
"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the Spanish-American War and the Cold War and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its political and economic goals. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the latest, though perhaps not the last, example of the dangers inherent in these operations.
In Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer tells the stories of the audacious politicians, spies, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers. He also shows that the U.S. government has often pursued these operations without understanding the countries involved; as a result, many of them have had disastrous long-term consequences.
Stephen Kinzer
Stephen Kinzer is the author of many books, including The True Flag, The Brothers, Overthrow, and All the Shah’s Men. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany, and Turkey. He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and writes a world affairs column for the Boston Globe. He lives in Boston.
More audiobooks from Stephen Kinzer
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Overthrow
Related audiobooks
The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America's Highest Office Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War over the American Dollar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Washington: The Making of the American Capital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5State of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
United States History For You
The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Overthrow
147 ratings10 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Easy to understand; the descriptions are detailed and enable the reader to visualize. After reading this piece of History, I will not get surprised anymore, with what is happening in the world currently.
The pictures available with the hardcopy give faces to some of the key players in Overthrow. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Comprehensive and highly detailed account of United States regime change efforts. This book is a must listen for any student of world history.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Stephen Kinzer's "Overthrow" sought to illustrate a trended pattern of regime changes driven by the United States government on foreign land. He detailed specific situations and defined the categories of coups coupled with commonalities of the countries in which the USA initiated overthrows of key politicians.
Blatant coups took place in countries with rich, natural resources that fell under foreign (namely, American) control; or in scenarios where nationalization of those resources were attempted, America stepped in to protect its corporate interests.
Covert coups, typically of the Cold War Era, seemed to be conducted differently because they were based on an assumption that Communism need to be stopped. "Far easier was to categorize nationalism simply as a disguised form of Communist aggression and seek to crush it wherever it reared its ugly head" (pp. 215-216).
"What distinguishes Americans from citizens of past empires is their eagerness to persuade themselves that they are acting out of humanitarian motives. For most of the "regime change" era, the United States did little or nothing to promote democracy in the countries whose governments it deposed" (pg. 316). The consistent, Immediate effects of US-driven coups led to "larcenous frenzy" (pg. 306), and insufficient troop support to stop fires, looting, and other crimes of opportunity.
Kinzer's research revealed that The United States has mistakenly believed that in making a foreign country turn democratic that it can be equated with the political position of being pro-American. More often than not, the converse has revealed itself to be true. Coups/Overthrows tend to "bind the United States" to the subject matter countries. It was this form attachment that chiseled our almost inescapable legacy.
"Overthrow" is the fourth book I have read by Stephen Kinzer, and it my least favorite of the bunch. It was typical for there to be a lack of transition between the chapters (typically representing a separate country), and when he tried to make the chapters connect toward the end of the book, his paragraphs seemed to jump around. The book lacked structural cohesion and seemed to be a rush-to-production book that took his research from previous books and slammed it together to call it a defined work. As such, it is not a book I would recommend to anyone; it was the fact that I am a fan of his that pushed me to read this compendium to completion. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A brisk and interesting chronicle of fourteen instances of U.S. intervention to promote "regime change" -- the ouster of an existing government in favor of one that the U.S. preferred. Well-written and interesting, though it would be nice if he ventured further into the broader implications of U.S. interventionism.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An important book for all Americans. We seem to have no memory of our own history. After 9/11, the President said the terrorists hate us for our freedom. This book suggests that there are many in the world with good reason to dislike the United States.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very interesting and fascinating history on an American century of regime change--starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokami and ending with our present debacle in Iraq. Kinzer goes behind the scenes to ferret out the characters behind the coups and the more often than not hapless victims of their ambitions. For the most part these are cautionary tales of ambition, greed and deceit filtered through a more often than not blinkered and arrogant view of righteousness and 'good' intentions and more often than not come back to haunt us sometimes 20--30 even 60 years afterwards. Many of these countries are very familiar to us--Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq. Kinzer argues that what may seem politically expedient today can have awful ramifications far into the future if not thought out carefully--a secondary theme being how little Americans in general know (or are even interested for that matter) about world history and how this leaves us unprepared to objectively view the machinations of regime change when one president or another of ours gets an idea in his head.Particularly poignant are the chapters on Iran (the Mossadegh coup), Guatemala (Arbenz), Vietnam (the Diem assassination that JFK unwittingly provoked less than a month before his own assassination), Chile (Allende) and our aid to the Afghan rebels many of whom later will become soldiers for the Taliban or terrorists for Al Quaeda. American foreign policy throughout the century has a tendency to take its eye off the ball after deposing its enemies often leaving a slowly boiling population to suffer under the hands of ' friendly to american interests' military tyrants. Kinzer makes the point also that the aspirations of those people though usually in time come to fruition albeit more often than not with much resentment towards our government--seen afterwards for its cynicism and hypocrisy. Kinzer is an excellent storyteller--who writes skillfully and with much verve. He is able to pare things down without losing focus on the personalities and politics involved. He is able to tie the stories together into a coherent whole. They are easy to read--not hard to understand and give much food for thought. Very well done and very much recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Regime Change" has been on the edge of everyone's tongue for the last 5 years. Iraq, Afghanistan, and perhaps Iran are the countries we think of, that and the United States executing the change. But what Stephen Kinzer brilliantly illustrates is that this idea, this preemptive, hegemony is a cornerstone of American politics and is not to be exclusively associated with George W. Bush and his cronies. From Hawaii to Iraq Kinzer draws the political lines between the bourgeois and people's democracy struggling over resources, and values.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kinzer's main thesis is that, from the end of the 19th Century through the present, the U.S. has used military power (both overtly and clandestinely) to overthrow governments seen as unfriendly to American interests. In most cases, these interests have been of an economic nature or coincident with economic benefits. In every instance, however, the manipulation of the fate of other countries and their people has been cloaked in more "elevated" rhetoric. Each chapter is devoted to a short history of one country ‘s takeover, beginning with Hawaii, then Central America, and ending with Iran and Iraq. Kinzer points to the use of patriotism and religious fervor to win over American popular opinion, backed by the big dollars and political support of corporations ”eagerly looking abroad for new markets and sources of raw materials.” Of contemporary interest, Kinzer draws parallels between George W. Bush and William McKinley, noting with sarcasm that “Neither man was troubled by his ignorance of the countries whose governments he overthrew.” Both, he observes, believed they were agents of divine inspiration, carrying out America’s “sacred mission to spread its form of government to faraway countries.”In spite of the lofty ideals professed by presidents under whose administrations regime changes were effected, the bottom line is that “Americans have believed they deserve access to markets and resources in other countries. When they are denied that access, they take what they want by force, deposing governments that stand in their way.”Kinzer tells some very interesting stories that are not the usual textbook fare: U.S. control of the banana republics by United Fruit; CIA destabilization tactics in Guatemala; the horrific determination of Nixon and Kissinger to, in Nixon’s words, “smash” that “son of a bitch Allende” in Chile; our love affair, and then change of heart, over Noriega; how the CIA worked behind the scenes to undermine Mossadegh in Iran (creating a nation full of America-hating youth, some of whom went on to take American diplomats as hostage and drive Jimmy Carter from office); and of course the piece de resistance – George W. Bush’s obsession with Iraq. “And in the end,” one would have to say with John Lennon, “the love you take, is equal to the love you make.” If we’re not much loved in the world right now, there are plenty of good reasons, and Kinzer makes a good start in delineating them.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Started off with a flourish, ended with a hamfisted bore fest designed to put the reader to sleep. Worth reading in my opnion for the first chapter on Hawaii - which was excellent. The rest deviated onto weird incredibly boring side tangents filled with plenty of pedestal mounted preaching.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5not a bad overview. Tends toget a little heavy handed in the last 1/3.