I've been having some heated debates with a historian friend about American foreign policy. They grant that the U.S. has done plenty of fucked up, unforgivable shit, but still fall back on "I'd rather live in a world under American hegemony than Russian / Chinese / enemy du jour hegemony."

This person's generally into lesser-evilism in all aspects of political analysis - staunch Democrat, disapproves of the status quo and works against it when they can but is still profoundly wary of any kind of disruption, etc. (You'd think that would incline against American interventionism, but no.) They're also more of a deontologist than a consequentialist when it comes to political action in general. This is outrageously frustrating because apparently losing with honor is a lesser evil than winning if winning involves doing anything you'd rather not have done unto you. I shared the Mark Twain quotation about the two terrors and they thought I was a madman.

Frustrations aside, this is a very smart person with whom I often trade book recommendations. If I bite the bullet and read an anti-communist memoir on their insistence I can probably retaliate by pushing any book I want.

My goal isn't necessarily to convert my friend, but to get them to understand where I'm coming from. So what do I pick? Ideas so far include Manufacturing Consent, Inventing Reality, and The Jakarta Method. Right now I'm leaning toward the last one, which I haven't read yet, but looks as though it might be a good fit.

Do any of you have other nominations? Maybe something that deals with U.S. involvement in Latin America, specifically?

Edit - This has been amazingly helpful, thank all of you so much.

  • FloridaBoi [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    From a quick glance at my bookshelf

    • An Indigenous People’s History Of the United States
    • A People’s History Of the United States
    • The Jakarta Method
    • Manufacturing Consent
    • Open Veins of Latin America
    • The Shock Doctrine
    • Settlers (might be too extreme)

    Perhaps understanding domestic policy towards out groups would be helpful to understanding how the US does foreign policy. It might help describe how certain structures are reproduced at smaller and larger scales but with the same aim.

    • Wertheimer [any]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      That's the extra-frustrating thing - my friend is very well versed in the domestic crimes against humanity and actively organizes for racial justice. It just either doesn't translate to foreign policy, or it's a "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know," or something like that.

      • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank may be good for them in that it really breaks down how the Democratic Party's "activism" is bullshit, but it was written pre-2016 election and may feel dated even though it's got a lot of neoliberal / dem history.

      • FloridaBoi [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Bridging that gap will be tricky. Literally anything about Iraq and Afghanistan (like Afghanistan Papers), Iran-Contra, Vietnam (Pentagon Papers) and Korean Wars should help elucidate the situation militarily but I think the financial aspects should also be open to discussion.

        I mentioned the domestic policy because a lot of it is mimicked at larger scales. Urban-rural divides mimics metropole-colony dynamics. Banking is a huge method of disciplining and oppressing the poor. Again this is similar to how payday lending works and who is targeted which is also something that occurs at the macro scale of IMF and WB and poor countries.

        Evicted is a good book about landlords that has racial dynamics on top of property and ownership issues.

        • Wertheimer [any]
          hexagon
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yeah - I'll make more of a point to emphasize that mimicry in future discussions. Good call.