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.
First off, this historian friend clearly needs a primer in American poet laureate Mark Twain’s eviscerating critique of American foreign policy.
Left Historian Extraordinaire Eric Foner wrote an entire book called “Mark Twain: Social Critic” that attests to this, covering everything from his pointed views on American slavery, lynching, imperialism, capitalism, corporatism and government bribery. Although he rightfully deserves some criticism for not publishing many of these views until after his death he did in many occasions rise to the challenge of taking unpopular stances against the war in the Philippines (“To the Person Sitting In the Darkness “), European pillage of Africa, corporate malfeasance and thuggery, and even against his home state of Missouri “The United States of Lyncherdom”).
Ran into a guy canvassing on a street corner in Queens today. Said he was collecting signatures to get on the ballot this election. I said I liked his shirt that had a peace symbol and an equality one, but that I loathed Libertarians, which is what he said he was. But I agreed with him that AOC needed a challenger.
I suggested he read Sheldon Woolin’s theory of Inverted Totalitarianism if he wanted to know more about the more radical Left.
We need to impress upon people only half paying attention that the whole thing is a sham, pay to play politics, fascism not with brown shirts and political street thugs but corporate omnipotence and a hostile takeover of everything we see, hear, eat and buy. The real power lies with the Wall St Economic Terrorists and Corporate America.