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.