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.
Not by a commie or about just the us, but 1491 was a decent overview of the genocide of the Americas. I recently read Dawning of Apocalyse and Counter Revolution of 1776, which are also great and I dont see listed, but Horne's prose is really dry.
Open veins is written by a journalist like 1491 and the quality of the writing is similarly evocative. Haven't finished memory of fire trilogy
I do recommend the "sequel" to 1491 as well, titled '1493.' It expands on the theories and ideas laid out in 1491. In particular I found the chapter about Maroon culture and society in Brazil to be super fascinating. It wasn't quite as engaging as 1491 as I remember it but I still found it a nice enjoyable read. Definitely something you can pass on to somebody else when you're done who might not be as well-versed in the history of Colonialism and would have difficulty with denser academic texts.
I can't remember if I read it in 1493 or elsewhere but in what is today Chile, about 20-30 years after encountering Spanish conquistadors on horseback, the Mapuche were riding horses in cavalry formations against the Spaniards in battle. Chad as fuck.
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They're pretty good, actually. A few misses here and there but 1493, which is the one I've read, treats the birth of globalization in such a way that you can't help but examine the way it works today. The chapter on the rubber trade was particularly resonant in that regard, and when I think of Bolivian lithium mines today I'm inevitably reminded of the chapter on the Spanish and Potosi.
Thanks, I've read the sequel to the Mann but hadn't heard of Horne, whose books look like good ammunition for another historian friend that I argue all the time with. (I expect he's read them or is at least familiar. Should be fun.)