The title is taken from his television film about the mythology of globalization, in which he revealed how General Suharto's bloody seizure of power in Indonesia in the 1960s was part of a Western design that was the beginning of globalization in Asia. In this book, Pilger discloses more of a secret history which saw a million Indonesians die as the price for its mantle as the World Bank's 'model pupil.' He also describes the price paid by the people of Iraq for the West's decade-long embargo of that country. Returning to his homeland, Australia, he looks behind the hype that led up to the Millennium Olympics in Sydney, reflecting on Australia's continuing subjugation of its Aboriginal people. Following the terrorist attacks on America and the bombing of Afghanistan, he looks at the new thrust of American power and its goal of world order, and the propaganda that helps drive it.

In Heroes, the first of his trilogy of books that includes "Distant Voices and Hidden Agendas," John Pilger collects his most important writing on the Vietnam War, U.S. politics, Palestine, and the role of committed journalism. Heroes takes us to the front lines of numerous struggles for social justice around the world. Pilger looks at history from the standpoint of ordinary people and those whose stories are rarely heard in the mainstream media, whether the victims of U.S. napalm bombs in Vietnam, those suffering from the ongoing legacy of colonialism in Africa, or the civilians facing bombing in Iraq today.

"Each chapter," Pilger writes in a new Introduction, "tries to make sense of events that have touched and influenced many lives, not least my own."

John Pilger is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning journalist, documentary film maker, and author. Born in Australia and based in London, his audience—and subject matter—are truly international. "He is a photographer using words instead of a camera," says Salman Rushdie. He writes regularly for The Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Nation, and the New Statesman, and is a ZNet Commentator.

Pilger's Awards include: Campaigning Journalist of the Year (1977), Journalist of the Year (1979), The George Foster Peabody Award (1990), the American Television Academy Award ("Emmy") Award (1991), and the 1995 International de Television Award.