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Endless Holocausts: Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire
An argument against the myth of "American exceptionalism"
Endless Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire helps us to come to terms with what we have long the rise of the U.S. Empire has relied upon an almost unimaginable loss of life, from its inception during the European colonial period, to the present. And yet, in the face of a series of endless holocausts at home and abroad, the doctrine of American exceptionalism has plagued the globe for over a century.
However much the ruling class insists on U.S. superiority, we find ourselves in the midst of a sea change. Perpetual wars, deteriorating economic conditions, the resurgence of white supremacy, and the rise of the Far Right have led millions of people to abandon their illusions about this country. Never before have so many people rejected or questioned traditional platitudes about the United States.
In Endless Holocausts author David Michael Smith demolishes the myth of exceptionalism by demonstrating that manifold forms of mass death, far from being unfortunate exceptions to an otherwise benign historical record, have been indispensable in the rise of the wealthiest and most powerful imperium in the history of the world. At the same time, Smith points to an extraordinary history of resistance by Indigenous peoples, people of African descent, people in other nations brutalized by U.S. imperialism, workers, and democratic-minded people around the world determined to fight for common dignity and the sake of the greater good.
Endless Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire helps us to come to terms with what we have long the rise of the U.S. Empire has relied upon an almost unimaginable loss of life, from its inception during the European colonial period, to the present. And yet, in the face of a series of endless holocausts at home and abroad, the doctrine of American exceptionalism has plagued the globe for over a century.
However much the ruling class insists on U.S. superiority, we find ourselves in the midst of a sea change. Perpetual wars, deteriorating economic conditions, the resurgence of white supremacy, and the rise of the Far Right have led millions of people to abandon their illusions about this country. Never before have so many people rejected or questioned traditional platitudes about the United States.
In Endless Holocausts author David Michael Smith demolishes the myth of exceptionalism by demonstrating that manifold forms of mass death, far from being unfortunate exceptions to an otherwise benign historical record, have been indispensable in the rise of the wealthiest and most powerful imperium in the history of the world. At the same time, Smith points to an extraordinary history of resistance by Indigenous peoples, people of African descent, people in other nations brutalized by U.S. imperialism, workers, and democratic-minded people around the world determined to fight for common dignity and the sake of the greater good.
504 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 7, 2023
This was a huge bummer, but also extremely important to read for anyone who might still buy into the myth of American exceptionalism, or who wants to educate themselves on the many crimes and mass deaths committed by the United States throughout its history. It was extremely well-researched—Smith includes over 200 pages of references to back up every single example of mass death he mentions—and is excellent at portraying the massive scope of atrocities (both at home and abroad) committed by the U.S., the single largest purveyor of violence, exploitation, and warfare in human history.
The book is divided into thematic sections, where Smith catalogues instance after instance of mass death related to certain periods of American history (the genocide of Native Americans, coups, invasions, and proxy wars both pre- and post-WWII, the death toll associated with industrialization, etc.). At the end of each section, he provides a total number of deaths for the period which the chapter covered. These figures are, again, backed up by extensive research and a huge number of references; the facts and figures in this work are undeniable and staggering in their scope and heinousness. I'll briefly cover each section here to give an idea of the incredible scale of violence and destruction this book covers.
The first section covers the brutal genocide of the Native American populations who lived on what would become the U.S., and covers 500 years of invasion, colonialism, and oppression by both European colonizers and the U.S. itself. This genocide continues into the present day, and by Smith's best estimate (the figure is hard to pinpoint, but can be reasonably inferred based on the massive amounts of historical data), between 70 and 80 million indigenous people have died due to colonialism, racism, and imperialism in the Western Hemisphere.
The second section, "The African American Holocaust", covers the long history of the transatlantic slave trade in depth, as well as that of mass incarceration, mob violence, poor health conditions rooted in racism, and medical experimentation perpetrated against black people in the U.S. This section also covers about 500 years of history, and estimates that the U.S. is accountable for the deaths of over 18 million black people due to the aforementioned factors; the figure is even higher when accounting for deaths perpetrated by pre-U.S. colonialism and slavery.
The next section, "The Workers Holocaust", covers the human toll exacted by the exploitation of workers within the capitalist mode of production. It discusses indentured servitude, industrial accidents due to poor work conditions (again, a product of capitalism), the deaths of Chinese laborers on railroads, etc., the deaths of workers murdered by police and the military during strikes or unionization efforts, and workplace-related diseases due to the aforementioned poor work conditions. Smith estimates that labor-related deaths caused by capitalism can account for around 13.5 million deaths since 1880.
Next, Smith covers the history of the U.S.'s warmongering and violence from the Revolutionary War up to and including WWII. He covers such periods of American history as the War of 1812, the beginnings of U.S. military interventions around the world (more on this later), the Civil War, the illegal annexation of Hawai'i, the invasion of the Philippines, intervention in the Mexican Revolution, American involvement in WWI, the invasion of the Soviet Union during their civil war, financial and military support for fascist Italy, Spain, and Nazi Germany (including the complicity of many American corporations in the Holocaust), support for the fascist coup in Greece, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, among many other foreign interventions and minor wars. He estimates that "Altogether, the U.S. empire was responsible or shared responsibility for approximately 127 million deaths between 1775 and 1945."
The next two sections are where it gets really juicy, as the CIA is on the scene and the U.S. has officially become the most powerful regime on Earth. They are "Holocausts of Pax Americana I & II". Besides the large-scale wars of aggression against Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and others, it also covers every one of the U.S.-backed authoritarian coups, sustenance of fascist dictatorships, and complicity in genocides from the start of the Cold War up to roughly present-day. I'll just give a list here, to demonstrate the absolutely insane levels of violent interventionism and warfare the U.S. is responsible for in the 20th and 21st century.
By Smith's research, the U.S. has backed dictatorial coups, funded paramilitary death squads, prevented democratic elections, bombed, drone-striked, invaded, and caused famines, genocides, and civil wars in:
Nicaragua, China, Mexico, Egypt, Samoa, modern-day Tunisia, Morocco, Japan, Liberia, Haiti, Chile, Hawai'i, Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines, Indonesia, Guam, Wake Island, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, the Soviet Union, the DPRK, Ethiopia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Madagascar, Malaysia, Iran, Palestine, apartheid South Africa, Guatemala, Algeria, Tibet, Hungary, Lebanon, Iraq, the DRC, Angola, Mozambique, Guyana, Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Ghana, Bolivia, Nigeria, Uganda, Pakistan, Yemen, Turkey, Bangladesh, Burundi, Timor Leste, Argentina, Jamaica, Somalia, Afghanistan, Chad, Honduras, Grenada, Sri Lanka, Namibia, Libya, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia (ie. many of the modern-day Balkan states), Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, El Salvador, Syria, Costa Rica, and Ukraine.
Many of these are repeat offenders too—the U.S. has a long history of repression and destruction in Nicaragua or Iraq for example, with several instances throughout history of coups, invasions, and support for dictatorships in those countries, not to mention longstanding backing for the settler-colonial genocide in Palestine. Between these two sections, Smith estimates approx. 29 million deaths caused by the U.S. in the first 30 years after WWII, and another 25 million deaths in the past forty years. Again, these continue into the modern day as we continue to destroy Somalia, support apartheid in Palestine, mount tensions with the People's Republic of China and the DPRK, etc. etc.
The final section covers other various holocausts at home, including the human toll due to the U.S.'s lackluster healthcare system (ie. people who died due to not being able to afford healthcare), police murders (this section was extremely compelling and well-documented), the botched response to COVID-19, the human costs of our insanely car-centric transportation network, the massive sway held by the tobacco advertising industry in the 20th century, pollution deaths, medical experimentation, racist hate crimes, and more. This figure is close to 74 million deaths, and will continue to rise as long as the capitalist-imperialist U.S. regime continues to allow climate change to destroy our planet.
I have to give this four stars though, because while it is an exhaustive and very well-researched overview of the history of American imperialism and its massive toll on the world, it offers little in the way of actual, concrete historical analysis. The decline of the U.S. empire in the 21st century is mentioned often, but little analysis is given to the inevitable consequence of a capitalist-imperialist state in decline, which is fascism. One can easily draw their own conclusions and carry out their own historical-materialist interpretation of the facts presented in this book, but I would have liked for Smith to at least tie the whole thing together at the end with some sort of conclusory chapter; he talks in great detail about what has been done, but not much about what is to be done to stop the U.S. empire from continuing its crusade of violence and warmongering against the rest of the world.
The book is divided into thematic sections, where Smith catalogues instance after instance of mass death related to certain periods of American history (the genocide of Native Americans, coups, invasions, and proxy wars both pre- and post-WWII, the death toll associated with industrialization, etc.). At the end of each section, he provides a total number of deaths for the period which the chapter covered. These figures are, again, backed up by extensive research and a huge number of references; the facts and figures in this work are undeniable and staggering in their scope and heinousness. I'll briefly cover each section here to give an idea of the incredible scale of violence and destruction this book covers.
The first section covers the brutal genocide of the Native American populations who lived on what would become the U.S., and covers 500 years of invasion, colonialism, and oppression by both European colonizers and the U.S. itself. This genocide continues into the present day, and by Smith's best estimate (the figure is hard to pinpoint, but can be reasonably inferred based on the massive amounts of historical data), between 70 and 80 million indigenous people have died due to colonialism, racism, and imperialism in the Western Hemisphere.
The second section, "The African American Holocaust", covers the long history of the transatlantic slave trade in depth, as well as that of mass incarceration, mob violence, poor health conditions rooted in racism, and medical experimentation perpetrated against black people in the U.S. This section also covers about 500 years of history, and estimates that the U.S. is accountable for the deaths of over 18 million black people due to the aforementioned factors; the figure is even higher when accounting for deaths perpetrated by pre-U.S. colonialism and slavery.
The next section, "The Workers Holocaust", covers the human toll exacted by the exploitation of workers within the capitalist mode of production. It discusses indentured servitude, industrial accidents due to poor work conditions (again, a product of capitalism), the deaths of Chinese laborers on railroads, etc., the deaths of workers murdered by police and the military during strikes or unionization efforts, and workplace-related diseases due to the aforementioned poor work conditions. Smith estimates that labor-related deaths caused by capitalism can account for around 13.5 million deaths since 1880.
Next, Smith covers the history of the U.S.'s warmongering and violence from the Revolutionary War up to and including WWII. He covers such periods of American history as the War of 1812, the beginnings of U.S. military interventions around the world (more on this later), the Civil War, the illegal annexation of Hawai'i, the invasion of the Philippines, intervention in the Mexican Revolution, American involvement in WWI, the invasion of the Soviet Union during their civil war, financial and military support for fascist Italy, Spain, and Nazi Germany (including the complicity of many American corporations in the Holocaust), support for the fascist coup in Greece, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, among many other foreign interventions and minor wars. He estimates that "Altogether, the U.S. empire was responsible or shared responsibility for approximately 127 million deaths between 1775 and 1945."
The next two sections are where it gets really juicy, as the CIA is on the scene and the U.S. has officially become the most powerful regime on Earth. They are "Holocausts of Pax Americana I & II". Besides the large-scale wars of aggression against Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and others, it also covers every one of the U.S.-backed authoritarian coups, sustenance of fascist dictatorships, and complicity in genocides from the start of the Cold War up to roughly present-day. I'll just give a list here, to demonstrate the absolutely insane levels of violent interventionism and warfare the U.S. is responsible for in the 20th and 21st century.
By Smith's research, the U.S. has backed dictatorial coups, funded paramilitary death squads, prevented democratic elections, bombed, drone-striked, invaded, and caused famines, genocides, and civil wars in:
Nicaragua, China, Mexico, Egypt, Samoa, modern-day Tunisia, Morocco, Japan, Liberia, Haiti, Chile, Hawai'i, Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines, Indonesia, Guam, Wake Island, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, the Soviet Union, the DPRK, Ethiopia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Madagascar, Malaysia, Iran, Palestine, apartheid South Africa, Guatemala, Algeria, Tibet, Hungary, Lebanon, Iraq, the DRC, Angola, Mozambique, Guyana, Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Ghana, Bolivia, Nigeria, Uganda, Pakistan, Yemen, Turkey, Bangladesh, Burundi, Timor Leste, Argentina, Jamaica, Somalia, Afghanistan, Chad, Honduras, Grenada, Sri Lanka, Namibia, Libya, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia (ie. many of the modern-day Balkan states), Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, El Salvador, Syria, Costa Rica, and Ukraine.
Many of these are repeat offenders too—the U.S. has a long history of repression and destruction in Nicaragua or Iraq for example, with several instances throughout history of coups, invasions, and support for dictatorships in those countries, not to mention longstanding backing for the settler-colonial genocide in Palestine. Between these two sections, Smith estimates approx. 29 million deaths caused by the U.S. in the first 30 years after WWII, and another 25 million deaths in the past forty years. Again, these continue into the modern day as we continue to destroy Somalia, support apartheid in Palestine, mount tensions with the People's Republic of China and the DPRK, etc. etc.
The final section covers other various holocausts at home, including the human toll due to the U.S.'s lackluster healthcare system (ie. people who died due to not being able to afford healthcare), police murders (this section was extremely compelling and well-documented), the botched response to COVID-19, the human costs of our insanely car-centric transportation network, the massive sway held by the tobacco advertising industry in the 20th century, pollution deaths, medical experimentation, racist hate crimes, and more. This figure is close to 74 million deaths, and will continue to rise as long as the capitalist-imperialist U.S. regime continues to allow climate change to destroy our planet.
I have to give this four stars though, because while it is an exhaustive and very well-researched overview of the history of American imperialism and its massive toll on the world, it offers little in the way of actual, concrete historical analysis. The decline of the U.S. empire in the 21st century is mentioned often, but little analysis is given to the inevitable consequence of a capitalist-imperialist state in decline, which is fascism. One can easily draw their own conclusions and carry out their own historical-materialist interpretation of the facts presented in this book, but I would have liked for Smith to at least tie the whole thing together at the end with some sort of conclusory chapter; he talks in great detail about what has been done, but not much about what is to be done to stop the U.S. empire from continuing its crusade of violence and warmongering against the rest of the world.
June 8, 2023
The scope of Smiths scholarship here is impressive as the book covers roughly 500 years of mass death across most of the globe. The text is excellently sourced with the endnotes being almost the length of the book itself. Smith breaks down each instance of mass death that the United States is either responsible for, shared responsibility for, complicit in or has benefited from. This ranges from killings carried out by us troops, to death squads equipped with us arms, all the way to social deaths caused by profit driven US firms allowing for unsafe working conditions.
Smith does an excellent job laying out the mass death and the US role in it, with the citations to back up every claim. However Endless Holocausts almost feels like more of a reference book than a unified text. A stunning amount of evidence is compiled here but is seldom used to build something bigger. Also at times a limit to the accounting of US caused mass death becomes clear when Smith discusses the world wars or multi sided Cold War proxy conflicts. The US is in part responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, but so where the Nazis, British Empire, and Soviet Union in these same conflicts, so assigning them at a 1:1 rate to the US is problematic. However I can’t see much of a better way as portioning fractional responsibility in conflicts with millions of dead is stranger.
On the whole Smith accomplished the purpose of the book, which was cataloguing the mass death caused by the US.
Smith does an excellent job laying out the mass death and the US role in it, with the citations to back up every claim. However Endless Holocausts almost feels like more of a reference book than a unified text. A stunning amount of evidence is compiled here but is seldom used to build something bigger. Also at times a limit to the accounting of US caused mass death becomes clear when Smith discusses the world wars or multi sided Cold War proxy conflicts. The US is in part responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, but so where the Nazis, British Empire, and Soviet Union in these same conflicts, so assigning them at a 1:1 rate to the US is problematic. However I can’t see much of a better way as portioning fractional responsibility in conflicts with millions of dead is stranger.
On the whole Smith accomplished the purpose of the book, which was cataloguing the mass death caused by the US.
April 30, 2024
This book reads pretty dry and doesn't go into too much detail about the events it claims as holocausts, but I consider that more of the fault of the US empire than I do the author. To fit all of the colonial/imperial/genocidal history of the US into one book and to give each instance an adequate retelling would put this book well over 1000 pages and for that I commemorate the author for attempting to offer a concise history of the US and the travesties brought onto other by it. The first two chapter regarding the genocide of the Native Americans and slavery still make my blood boil even after knowing the history of both processes pretty well. Those events are just some things that never get easier to read.
The chapter that I thought had the most promise but not the best delivery was the chapter on occupational deaths within the US. I believe the author could have made a more passionate claim that occupational deaths are not only the responsibility of the strictures of capital and the desire for profit maximization, but also the state's willingness to look the other way regarding safety provisions. There is also not much mention on how the offshoring of manufacturing and industrial jobs has also offshored the deaths and injures associated with it, as well as the reinstitution of child labor in the US.
This is still a worthwhile book that sheds light on US involvement domestically and internationally all the way to contemporary America.
The chapter that I thought had the most promise but not the best delivery was the chapter on occupational deaths within the US. I believe the author could have made a more passionate claim that occupational deaths are not only the responsibility of the strictures of capital and the desire for profit maximization, but also the state's willingness to look the other way regarding safety provisions. There is also not much mention on how the offshoring of manufacturing and industrial jobs has also offshored the deaths and injures associated with it, as well as the reinstitution of child labor in the US.
This is still a worthwhile book that sheds light on US involvement domestically and internationally all the way to contemporary America.
August 12, 2023
extremely depressing but necessary
There’s a hole in Uncle Sam’s arm where all the money goes and here is a detailed account. Mass murder, environmental devastation, the torture of the people and the planet all for the benefit of the few.
There’s a hole in Uncle Sam’s arm where all the money goes and here is a detailed account. Mass murder, environmental devastation, the torture of the people and the planet all for the benefit of the few.
February 19, 2025
Justifying its provocative title, this book acts as a compendium of the death needed to establish and maintain the American imperium. The book begins with an alarmingly high death toll, attributable to America and the author wastes no time breaking down in sober and staggering detail how he arrived at his sum.
The prose is dry and matter of fact but each paragraph has enough intrigue to fill a book of its own. It's concision is an achievement and as a launch pad for other areas of reading, it's indispensable.
The prose is dry and matter of fact but each paragraph has enough intrigue to fill a book of its own. It's concision is an achievement and as a launch pad for other areas of reading, it's indispensable.
January 19, 2026
everyone who cares at all about politics needs to read this.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews