The Violent American Century - (Dispatch Books) by John W Dower (Paperback)

About the Book

The Violent "American Century" addresses the U.S.-led transformations in war conduct and strategizing that followed 1945.

Book Synopsis

The Violent "American Century" addresses the U.S.-led transformations in war conduct and strategizing that followed 1945.

Review Quotes

"[The Violent American Century] is so important, such essential reading... There is much in it that I knew, and quite a bit that I vaguely remembered, and some that I had never assimilated, but to have all that information in one short text, expertly woven and explained, is a devastating indictment of American violence and its imperial hubris. The footnotes alone are more than worth the price (which is very low, especially if we compare it to a Tomahawk missile). It is really like a mini-encyclopedia of American expansionism, but written with the verve of a political thriller, and with the murderer being chased and nailed down step by misstep....The Violent American Century has a chance to affect at a massive level our understanding of the world we live in, the one that America has shaped but has been unable to dominate. At a time when the military has taken over the national government -- not to mention the industrialists -- I am grateful to have Dower's fierce intelligence on our side. Let's hope it gets the readership it deserves"--Ariel Dorfman, New York Times

"John Dower ends this grim recounting of 75 years of constant war, intervention, assassination and other crimes by calling for "serious consideration" of why the most powerful nation in world history is so dedicated to these practices while ignoring the nature of its actions and their consequences - an injunction that could hardly be more timely or necessary as the Pentagon's "arc of instability" expands to an "ocean of instability" and even an 'atomic arc of instability' in Dower's perceptive reflections on today's frightening world." --Noam Chomsky

"Dower delivers a convincing blow to publisher Henry Luce's benign "American Century" thesis, positing that violence has continued at an epic pace through conventional combat and terrorism as well as through famine, disease, and displacement of people from their homelands. The U.S. often responds as victim rather than villain, but Dower concludes that the country's preoccupation with its own exceptionalism continues to perpetuate the American hubris that fuels ever more violent international conflicts." --Publisher's Weekly

"No historian understands the human cost of war, with its paranoia, madness and violence, as does John Dower, and in this deeply researched volume he tells how America, since the end of World War II, has turned away from its ideals and goodness to become a match setting the world on fire. George W. Bush's post-9/11 'global war on terror' was not a new adventure, but just more of the same."--Seymour Hersh

In The Violent American Century, John Dower has produced a sharply eloquent account of the use of U.S. military power since World War II. From "hot" Cold War conflicts to drone strikes, Dower examines the machinery of American violence and its staggering toll. This is an indispensable book.--Marilyn Young, author of Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990

"John Dower is our most judicious guide to the dark underbelly of post-War American power in the world. Those who focus on Europe and North America speak of a Pax Americana. This is to ignore the technologies of violence that Washington meticulously deployed in Asia and the global South, from total war to "shock and awe," of which Dower is our unflinching analyst."-- Juan Cole, author of The New Arabs

A lucid, convincing, and chilling account of the self-deceiving American fall into violence. Dower's clear-eyed analysis of a terrible history, for its faith in the power of truth, invites a fresh determination to

About the Author

JOHN W. DOWER is professor emeritus of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His many books include War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War and Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War Two, which won numerous prizes including the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.