Alfred W. McCoy

This book by Alfred McCoy is brilliant, incisive, and offers a clear panorama of how America – through the CIA and the army – fought the Cold War across five continents. While the book often mentions moves the Russians made, Al McCoy’s clear focus is on America.
The book’s defining feature is the sustained focus on espionage, intelligence agencies, psychological warfare, and the ‘man on the spot.’ I do not know how many of these conflicts could have been sustained without these show more daring, ruthless people on the spot, often running almost loose.
Alfred McCoy also discusses the sustained damage inflicted on the regions used as arenas for the Cold War.
The book is not for casual readers and is heavy on detail, making it difficult to read. If you intend to study geopolitics, the Cold War, or post-colonial conflict, then buy the hard copy of the book, as you will be able to use it as a reference.
The book reinterprets the Cold War, is a critique of empire and covert power, is a synthesis of intelligence and social history, and warns against repeating geopolitical mistakes. Anyone following recent events will realize we will keep repeating these errors.
There is another critical element in the book that sets it apart from other Cold War histories, which portray America as a moral and defensive player. Alfred McCoy portrays America’s role as active, interventionist, without hesitating to decapitate governments or destroy economies.
The book is brilliant show less

Alfred McCoy's book. "To Govern the Globe" is a magnificent book. To cover the rise and fall of the great empires, to write about their interrelationships, the cause of their rise and fall, and to create an engrossing narrative is a cause for celebration.
He started with the changes in Europe after the Black Death and the invasions of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. These events forced changes on Europeans and forced them to go out in search of income. Thus started the age of global trade, show more empire, colonialism, and genocide.

We are in a state of flux. America is plateauing, if not declining; China is rising, and climate change is creating its own challenges.

Alfred McCoy's analyses of the past empires, America, China, and the forces shaking the world now, are impeccable.
On top, the book is readable. show less

Alfred McCoy, a distinguished professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, has long been a thorn in the side of the CIA. In the pages of this brief book McCoy traces the history of modern torture techniques as developed and used by the CIA. The book demonstrates that the Abu Ghraib abuses have roots far beyond the Bush years. The techniques used there are standard operating procedure.

Sensory deprivation, self-infiction of pain, and assault on the cultural mores of the victim are the show more hallmarks of the techniques. Read this book and then take one look at the infamous Abu Ghraib pictures and you will understand with certainty that the responsibility goes well beyond Lynndie England and the prison guard grunts. They did not come up with these techniques.

McCoy briefly relates that the US historically engaged in systematic torture in the Vietnam Phoenix program and taught Central American governments the CIA methods, to name just two examples. This history was largely ignored in discussions of Abu Ghraib as some commentators simply refused to believe that Americans would do such things.

But does torture work? And if it does, should we use it?

With respect to the efficacy of torture, McCoy quotes a 4th century C.E. Roman legal scholar Ulpian: "the strong will resist and the weak will say anything to end the pain." McCoy also destroys the silly hypotheses about the atomic bomb in Times Square used to justify torture.

McCoy has explained why we, in whose name this torture is performed, should oppose it:

"There's an absolute ban on torture for a very good reason. Torture taps into the deepest recesses, unexplored recesses of human consciousness, where creation and destruction coexist, where the infinite human capacity for kindness and infinite human capacity for cruelty coexist, and it has a powerful perverse appeal, and once it starts, both the perpetrators and the powerful who order them, let it spread, and it spreads out of control."

Highly recommended. show less

I can't stress enuf how important this bk is to me. While the early edition that I refer to here focuses primarily on the US & Southeast Asia, particularly in the Vietnam War era, its extremely well-researched information is clearly applicable to explaining the covert machinations of ALL GOVERNMENTS. If you want to understand in detail how heroin is used to both control & destroy domestic populations AND 'foreign' ones AND how its production & sale is a major source of war-mongering funding, show more READ THIS BK. show less