- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Metropolitan Books; First Edition edition (Mar 14 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0805062386
- ISBN-13: 978-0805062380
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 522 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #507,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
If the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century may be a time of reckoning for the United States. Chalmers Johnson, an authority on Japan and its economy, offers a troubling prognosis of what's to come. Blowback--the title refers to a CIA neologism describing the unintended consequences of American activity--is a call for the United States to rethink its position in the world. "The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation," writes Johnson. "The world is not a safer place as a result." Individual chapters focus on Okinawa (where American servicemen were accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in "Asia's last colony"), the two Koreas, China, and Japan. The result is a liberal-leaning (and Asia-centric) call for the United States to disengage from many of its global commitments. Critics will call Johnson an isolationist, but friends (perhaps admirers of Patrick Buchanan's A Republic, Not an Empire) will say he simply speaks good sense. All will agree he is an earnest voice: "I believe our very hubris ensures our undoing." --John J. Miller
From Publishers Weekly
This no-holds-barred indictment of what Johnson calls the post-Cold War American "global empire" is not for the faint of heart. Among the opening images is a plastic bag containing three pairs of bloodied men's underwear gathered as evidence from the brutal 1995 gang rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl by two American marines and an American sailor, a crime that was officially passed off as an aberration but may qualify more accurately as another move in the endgame of, in Johnson's astringent phrase, "stealth imperialism." In his highly critical appraisal of the global U.S. military presence, Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and prolific commentator on Japan and Asia, focuses on the effects of "blowback," a term coined by the CIA to denote the unintended consequences of policies that were in many cases kept secret from the American public. From anti-Chinese pogroms carried out by U.S.-trained soldiers in Indonesia to the viciously suppressed 1980 pro-democracy demonstration in Kwangju, South Korea, Johnson examines the fallout from what he sees as American "economic colonialism." Detailed assessments of American engagement in Japan, Korea and China are coupled with closer-to-home observations on the liquidation of American jobs in places such as Birmingham, Ala., and Pittsburgh, the latter yet another consequence of the massive U.S. trade deficit with the countries of East Asia. Brazenly spending ever-swollen defense budgets, Johnson argues, the Pentagon is fueling an "antiglobalization time bomb" that could blow up at any moment. His chilling conclusion--backed by copious and livid detail--is that a nation reaps precisely what it sows. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
Northern Italian communities had, for years, complained about low-flying American military aircraft. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Northern Italian communities had, for years, complained about low-flying American military aircraft. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Informative, Insightful, Reading,
By
This review is from: Blowback : The Cost and Consequences of American Empire (Paperback)
very informative read, from a very integelligent, insightfull man.I read his "Trilogy" in reverse order, never the less it certainly made sense and was very informative, if not in some cases very "scary" An eye opener for those who have been fed a steady diet of what amounts to nothing more than good old fashioned American style propoganda.
4.0 out of 5 stars
I wonder if gkjy read the book gkjy???,
By
This review is from: Blowback : The Cost and Consequences of American Empire (Paperback)
gkjy,When you write "The central thesis is that the US aided Afghan Mujahadeen who then turned on the US" it makes me wonder if you read the book. There are things interesting about what happened in other parts of the world like Central America, Indonesia... Maybe you should try to have a copy of the first edition which was published in 2000? I have read the first 3 chapters and I like what I have read. It's more a case of explaining than blaming. Period!
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blowback,
This review is from: Blowback : The Cost and Consequences of American Empire (Paperback)
Johnson rightly examines the unintentioned effects of American foreign policy. Keeping in mind that this book was originally written pre-9/11, his observations concerning Osama Bin-Laden are eerie. The book causes the reader to wonder what will be the consequences (blowback) of Bush's current foreign policy and war in Iraq.
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