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Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

Stephen Kinzer

4.14 · Rating details · 3,552 ratings · 320 reviews

A fast-paced narrative history of the coups, revolutions, and invasions by which the United States has toppled fourteen foreign governments -- not always to its own benefit

"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian ...more

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Paperback, 384 pages

Published February 6th 2007 by Times Books (first published April 4th 2006)

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American Foreign Policy

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Jan 22, 2008 Anna rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Ross

Overthrow made me realize how poor my education of US history is, and saddly my foreign policy understanding as well. I am shocked that I hadn't learned about some of these coups in, say, my foreign policy to Latin America class in college or any one of my other international relations courses. This is an excellent primer for anyone who wants to understand current world events and why "they" might possibly hate "us." ...more

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Mar 16, 2009 Naeem rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: listeners of smooth jazz

Kinzer writes well and knows how get the reader to keep turning the pages. He is at his best when he is putting together individual stories of little known characters who played decisive roles in the history of US interventions. The book is worth it for these stories and for the characters that Kinzer unearths. But Kinzer tries to play two other roles for which he, as a former reporter, simply does not have the skills.

What happens when news turns into patterns? Answer: then it is no longer news Kinzer writes well and knows how get the reader to keep turning the pages. He is at his best when he is putting together individual stories of little known characters who played decisive roles in the history of US interventions. The book is worth it for these stories and for the characters that Kinzer unearths. But Kinzer tries to play two other roles for which he, as a former reporter, simply does not have the skills.

What happens when news turns into patterns? Answer: then it is no longer news. When what seems like a new event becomes part of a pattern, then we have ventured into social theory. As much as I envy their writing, their story telling, and their eye for individuals, I also feel bad for former reporters. Most of them are trained to recognize events and don’t know what to do when faced with patterns. As a hopeful social theorist, Kinzer wants to line up all the US interventions and show us a pattern. Each of his three sections (“Imperial Era,” “Covert Action,” and “Invasions”) ends with a chapter where he tries his hand at social theory. He moves, that is, from events to patterns. Mostly he fails for reasons I will discuss shortly.

Kinzer’s third mode is as an adjudicator. He decides, as white bearded God sitting up high with lightening bolts, which interventions were worth it (Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Grenada, Panama, and Afghanistan) and which weren’t (Philippines, Cuba, Honduras, Guetamala, Iran, Vietnam, and Chile). (I remained unclear about his position on Iraq.) The problem is that he leaves these decisions untheorized. And frankly this leaves him looking rather simple minded to those of us who have dedicated some energy to just such theorizing. Of course, he is, as they say, entitled to his opinion. But interventions in Third world countries are perhaps more than a matter of which flavor of ice-cream one likes, which films are good, or which style of music one prefers. The likely sad truth is that you and I have probably spent more energy theorizing ice-cream, films, and musical styles than Kinzer has spent on his adjudicating US interventions.

Kinzer’s major flaw, I think, is that he cannot help needing to deliver some good news to his readers. Whereas those, such as Chomsky, Zinn, and Churchill, make a commitment to cataloging US interventions and displaying their damage, Kinzer, like Joshua Moravchik and Max Boot, wants to support some of these interventions. I am not sure whether he does this out of conviction or as a strategy to keep from losing what he imagines is his typical US reader. In the conclusion, though, the defense of US intervention drops out. Here Kinzer makes the realist point (quoting Thucydides) that power corrupts even, and perhaps especially, those who believe naively in their own exceptionalism. This is an important point. But the point is made at some cost.

The cost is an overemphasis on individuals, actions, and events over patterns, systems, and structures; a porous and vapid defense of the occasional super-power intervention; and a framework that treats its readers as children who need morals to their stories.

The stories are great. If they can be excised from Kinzer’s shallowness and placed within a richer frame, then this book can be useful. Otherwise I'd rather have the bald faced frontal defenders of empire (Murivchik, Boot) or those who do not to hesitate to point to empire’s indefensibility (Chomsky, Churchill).

...more

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Dec 19, 2008 Neil Taylor rated it it was amazing

The American government has consistently invaded sovereign nations and gone to war to defend big business concerns and help corporate America pillage the natural resources of foreign nations. Hawaii was a stable monarchy before the American sugar plantation owners felt they were being prevented from making as much profit as they "deserved" so a coup was instigated and funded by the US government. A disturbing read about the lengths the US government will go to in order to protect the almighty do ...more

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Mar 19, 2019 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing

This is the third book I've read this year on US Empire (The others were The End of the Myth by Grandin and How to Hide an Empire). I am so happy (as someone who comes from one of the countries that has been meddled with consistently by US and UK policymakers) that American writers are starting to really study this history and name it what it is.

This is also the third Kinzer book I've read (I loved All the Shah's Men and The Dulles Brothers). Some of the stories were repetitive, but not too muc ...more

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Jul 29, 2017 Kevin rated it liked it

Shelves: z-questionable-reformist, history-america-imperialism

5-star topic (especially presenting it to the US mainstream in an accessible manner), -2 stars for Kinzer's career of shilling for NYT when courageous journalism is inconvenient...

The Good:
--We have to start somewhere, and Kinzer's account of a century of US terrorism on other countries does provide the bare-bone names, dates and places.
--Themes of US capitalist interests (against foreign independence), missionary racism, and empire geopolitics are introduced.
--The reporter-style writing and b ...more

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Sep 05, 2015 Elen rated it it was ok

A good work of history with some frankly abysmal analysis attached. I say it's a good work of history because Kinzer's research clearly does not back up a lot of his claims -- for instance, he states multiple times that people like Jacobo Árbenz or Mohammed Mosaddegh were people who believed in "American" values, while at the same time clearly illustrating that "American" values are a lie and a sham, given our propensity for overthrowing foreign governments and the clear fact that this is not ne A good work of history with some frankly abysmal analysis attached. I say it's a good work of history because Kinzer's research clearly does not back up a lot of his claims -- for instance, he states multiple times that people like Jacobo Árbenz or Mohammed Mosaddegh were people who believed in "American" values, while at the same time clearly illustrating that "American" values are a lie and a sham, given our propensity for overthrowing foreign governments and the clear fact that this is not new -- either we've been ethnically cleansing the continent in pursuit of manifest destiny, killing each other over the right to own other people, or carrying out coups against sovereign governments simply because they are protesting the colonial exploitation corporations based in America were carrying out against them.

Honestly, given that this was a very entertaining read that is, as I said, a well-researched piece of history, I was prepared to give it four stars, but the "afterword" or analysis of the last section of the book is so offensively bad that it got bumped down to three [edit: actually writing this paragraph made me so mad I can only give it two in good conscience]. Kinzer states, without apparent irony, that people like George Washington did not hold the view that "everyone could use democracy." Seven pages from the end (so close!) he makes the absolutely baseless claim that people like George Washington would oppose the way we go about "spreading democracy," which utterly ignores the fact that Washington himself cut his military teeth on the wholesale slaughter of indigenous peoples who refused to adapt to the "American" way of life, as did basically every other early president. Ignoring that is an egregious act of colonial erasure that fails to account for the fact that native people weresovereign peoples, with their own forms of government and their own "governing principle," in Washington's own words, and that they were merely "defending [their] interests" against brutal monsters who were intent on exterminating them in order to further their own commercial gain. It's an absurd notion that's the cherry on top of the shit sundae that is the final chapter, a chapter that openly espouses the idea that we should spread our values to the world, but we should be nice about it, and do it more like we did in South Korea or South Africa (what he means by this I honestly have no idea, especially with regards to South Korea) and less like we did with Iran, or Cuba, or North Korea. It's such a mindlessly absurd liberal notion that it soured the entire book for me, which up until the last chapter was a good read with some disappointing bits. ...more

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Mar 26, 2018 Antonio Nunez rated it it was amazing

Kinzer’s Overthrow is a history of the USA taking over countries by overthrowing their governments over the past 125 years. It all began in January 1893 when president Mackinley’s administration supported schemes by planters to take over Hawaii by dethroning the queen. This first overthrow included most of the elements that would characterize later ones: an economic interest by powerful business cartels (in this case, sugar), religious justification (redeeming benighted natives) and geopolitical Kinzer’s Overthrow is a history of the USA taking over countries by overthrowing their governments over the past 125 years. It all began in January 1893 when president Mackinley’s administration supported schemes by planters to take over Hawaii by dethroning the queen. This first overthrow included most of the elements that would characterize later ones: an economic interest by powerful business cartels (in this case, sugar), religious justification (redeeming benighted natives) and geopolitical considerations (a stepping stone to a Pacific empire). Thus did the US break with its former policy of keeping to its own shores and keeping foreign powers away from them. Yet, with the exception of Hawaii, which eventually became a US state (the last so far) and thus achieved order and prosperity (at the expense of its native culture and autonomy), these interventions usually ended up by wrecking the existing order and ushering in decades of instability and mayhem, usually suffered by the local population but often with regional or even global ramifications. In all cases the US was willing to incur significant costs to depose a government for not giving free rein to a powerful corporation or group of corporations, but not so much in investing in building up the country from the wreckage left after the troops left. Central America has been made toxic to this day due to over a century of US dominance. The same may be said by the Philippines, Iran and Afghanistan. Possible exceptions may be Chile and Grenada, although these were stable and orderly places before the overthrow of their leftist regimes and may therefore be seen to have reverted to type. The same may be said of Vietnam, but in that solitary case the locals won. The poster child for non intervention (particularly of the short-sighted, dumb kind) is Iraq, where hundreds of thousands have died and millions have been displaced, overwhelming Europe as refugees and justifying xenophobic parties and isolationist policies. Yet the brutality of Abu Ghraib was preceded by the brutality of the Philippino campaign and the My Lai massacre. The overthrow of nationalistic, progressive presidency of José Santos Zelaya gave rise, decades later, to virulently anti-US Sandinistas. Anticommunist Mossadegh’s overthrow eventually gave rise to ayatollah Homeini and Afghan Najibullah’s communist regime that never attacked the US ended in the reign of the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. Not a stellar record, even if one omits that the Nicaraguans had to live through 40 years of Somoza dictatorship, the Iranians through 25 years of the Shah’s tyranny and the Afghans through 20 years of civil war. The history of US interventions abroad is almost a school text on unintended consequences, on the limits of optimism and of the fragility or order, even of deficient order. Overall, an excellent book. ...more

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Jun 17, 2017 Thomas Ray marked it as to-read

This book only one century. But it didn't start with Hawaii. Thomas Jefferson changed the regime in Tripoli. The U.S. intervened in other nations 102 times between 1798 and 1895 (Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States). Always, U.S. military power has been used to enrich business interests.

Nor are the consequences to the target countries unintended! As Noam Chomsky says in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, Cuba’s “crime” is successfully caring for its people: a virus ...more

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Sep 22, 2009 b bb bbbb bbbbbbbb rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I was going to read this but ended up skimming it instead. Its an interesting topic, but this wasn't a very scholarly attempt. Its also blatantly partial in some rather naive ways. ...more

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May 17, 2018 Owlseyes marked it as to-read

Shelves: superpower-challenged, hawaii-1893, puerto-rico-1898, the-philippines-1898, cuba-1898, nicaragua-1909, declining-power

It’s a long list of nations, either invaded or intruded upon. Kinzer believes Americans “psychologically, always been on top”; yet in a “more equal and multipolar world” things may get different. Uneasy?
Kinzer is an American.

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May 22, 2012 Jerome rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In this study of regime change as a tool of foreign policy, Kinzer takes on a very interesting subject but really fails to make his case. Kinzer makes all the right choices in terms of subjects to make his case, but fails utterly to tie them together in any truly meaningful way. Further frustrating is Kinzer's poor grasp of history. He regularly claims that Hawaii was America's first foray into regime change which it was clearly not. Kinzer seems unaware of the misadventures of William Walker i In this study of regime change as a tool of foreign policy, Kinzer takes on a very interesting subject but really fails to make his case. Kinzer makes all the right choices in terms of subjects to make his case, but fails utterly to tie them together in any truly meaningful way. Further frustrating is Kinzer's poor grasp of history. He regularly claims that Hawaii was America's first foray into regime change which it was clearly not. Kinzer seems unaware of the misadventures of William Walker in Nicaragua, American intervention in Texas, and the American intervention in California prior to and druing the Mexican War. He also makes claims that the US has used regime change more than any other country, which excludes the imperialst adventures of Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, etc.

Overthrow" is an engrossing history of US "regime change", from the ouster of Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani to the destruction of Saddam Hussein's government. The author weaves a fascinating tale of America's mostly sordid acts of interference in the affairs of foreign nations and the blowback they often engendered. However, although the author protests that he only wrote this book so our future interventions would be conducted more wisely, it would be hard to come away from this book not thinking that regime change is_always_immoral and deleterious to national interests, a point I would question. I think that this book suffers from a certain logical inconsistency and overly simplistic understanding. Rather than drawing one overriding lesson from our history of interventionism, I think the cases he examines are often so different as to defy comparison. Each case should be studied on its own and logical conclusions drawn from each.

Admittedly, American support for, and active participation in foreign regime change has, more often than not, been pretty ignoble, uninformed and frequently undertaken to benefit private corporations and individuals. Our record in Central America is particularly shameful. I sympathize with Mr. Kinzer's visceral opposition to regime change, and think the vast majority of Americans, of whatever political inclination, would agree that decapitating a sovereign, democratic government so that United Fruit could avoid paying taxes is not a wise, proper or moral use of American power. However, that does not mean that there will never be situations where American national interest might necessitate the overthrow of foreign governments, by intrigue if possible, by war if necessary. It also doesn't mean that regime changes whose motivations are impure and whose implementation is violent necessarily result in negative results for either America or the foreign nation in question. That's where this book's thesis falls apart.

For instance, during the Cold War, the United States and the rest of the free world faced an existential threat from the most murderous, aggressive, inhuman and tyrannical ideology in the history of man: Communism. If that insidious ideology, cloaked in the garb of an angel of light and promising paradise on earth, often tricked huge numbers of ignorant peasants and wool-headed "intellectuals" into supporting their own enslavement- such as in Chile- that was all the more reason to combat it with guns and bombs rather than pamphlets from the Young Americans for Freedom. Would Mr. Kinzer have preferred that we battle Communism expansionism with discussion and logic? In a life and death struggle, you play to win, not earn the respect of liberal journalists and the League of Women Voters. If we misjudged the actual threat from regimes in Iran and Guatemala, that's merely an argument to use our power more wisely, not to forfeit its use entirely. Another challenge to Mr. Kinzer's politics is that the sleazy machinations that resulted in the annexation of Hawaii and the disgusting war of conquest that brought us Puerto Rico ended up bringing undeniable material and political benefits to the natives of those countries, who are today quiet content to live under Yankee "imperialism" and would- and have- rejected independence when given the choice. While I wouldn't have supported either annexation, who's to say that the unintended consequences of leaving those islands alone wouldn't have been worse in the long run than what actually happened?

In my opinion, a few of the relevant lessons that can be learned from this history is that we should not allow paranoia and ignorance to conflate mere nationalism with the ideologies and international movements of our actual enemies. Being leftist or anti-American doesn't necessarily make you a Communist. Being Islamic or authoritarian doesn't necessarily make you al-Quaida. Secondly, different cultures, races and stages of political development call for different approaches. While extending the franchise to Puerto Rico and Hawaii generally pacified those conquered territories, true democracy in nations like Iraq or Egypt either results in anarchy or Islamic rule. Mankind wasn't made on an assembly line. And thirdly, as a democratic republic, we must be ever vigilant to elect leaders who are intelligent enough, and honest enough, not to let themselves be duped into foreign intervention for corporate greed (US agri-giants in Central America), because of media-induced hysteria (the Spanish war), or for foreign interests. A serious threat to the national interest or security of the U.S. must be the high and sole criterion for foreign intervention.

In the second chapter he goes on to say that the Philippines is the first time American soldiers fight overseas, again incorrect. I seem to remember Marines in Tripoli long before.

What had the potential to be a useful and enlightening book on US foreign policy is little more than a angry and historically inaccurate diatribe against the US and its foreign policy. Kinzer makes numerous misleading statements, uses quotes out of context, and assumes that all US foreign policy ventures are dictated by selfish economic interests in general and by corporate robberbarons specifically. Virtually all his villains are Republicans. Oddly, he puts Grover Cleveland on a pedestal as an anti-imperialist---the same guy who signed the Dawes Act into law that led to the loss of vast stretches of land owned by Native Americans.

Misinformation ( ridiculous, if not pathetically predictable):

pg. 276: Kinzer writes that "Bush ignored repeated warnings that devastating attacks [9/11] were imminent." First of all, the so-called "warning" was a presidential daily brief delivered by the CIA on August 6, 2001. Like most, if not all, intelligence it had no specific information about the WTC/Pentagon plots that could have decisively prevented them. And besides, the problems that prevented us from stopping 9/11 were FAR more complex and deeply rooted than Bush "ignoring" a "warning" from the CIA. What nonsense.

pg. 278: Kinzer complains that the 9/11 attacks would never have occurred if the US had not armed and and trained the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Again, Kinzer makes a predictable and over-simplified claim. The mujahideen of the 1980s were, for the most part, bent on driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Before the Gulf War in 1991 (after the Soviets left), bin Laden was not particularly concerned about America. Only when US troops were deployed to Saudi Arabia did bin Laden begin harboring hatred for the US. Kinzer fails to mention that, other than the US, the mujahideen received substantial support from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. America was not the only country involved.

pg. 279: Kinzer complains that the CIA did nothing to save Abdul Haq from the Taliban during the war there in 2001, even claiming that the CIA did not dispatch armed Predator drones to Haq's location, EVEN THOUGH THE CIA DID. Huh!

In the end, Kinzer blames the failure to catch bin Laden on the Americans' "failure" to send in large numbers of conventional ground troops into Afghanistan, EVEN THOUGH THE SOVIETS TRIED THAT. And how succesful were the Soviets in trying this approach? Huh!!

Kinzer also claims that one of the reasons for the Iraq war was oil and the defense contractor Halliburton (formerly headed by Dick Cheney), which was awarded no-bid contracts for rebuilding oil refineries in Iraq. Kinzer, of course, predictably fails to mention that Cheney was actually forced to divest himself of his Halliburton stock when he became VP, and besides, all of the oil contracts in Iraq went to China and countries that didn't even participate in the invasion. ...more

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May 27, 2020 Miebara Jato rated it really liked it

"Civilization progresses only when the strongest nations and Army respects the rights and dignity of the weakest" -- Homer
America, as far is Overthrow goes, never gave any regarded for Homer's brilliant submission. ...more

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Jul 03, 2013 Tara rated it it was ok

I didn't particularly enjoy this book. Foreign policy isn't really my thing. Just ask my husband, who loves the stuff yet has to witness my eyes glaze over as I involuntarily tune out every time he wants to have a conversation about some foreign-policy type article he read in the paper or The Economist.

I hated the writing style (very repetetive - he needs an excellent editor) and I had a hard time with the one-sided point of view - in particular, I thought Kinzer was extraordinarily freehanded i ...more

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Jun 10, 2007 Alex rated it liked it

Shelves: capitalism, history

very odd book detailing the U.S.'s covert efforts to overthrow a dozen governments in the past century, a pretty radical topic, but from a liberal mainstream perspective. hwwaahh??

fails to make obvious conclusions about american empire. instead presents the case that meddling in other countries' affairs is bad for the u.s. government. doh! ...more

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Oct 27, 2018 Azmar Khan rated it it was amazing

Hands down the best book I’ve read in ages. This book is an answer to the question, “why do they hate us?”

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Nov 08, 2020 Dan rated it really liked it

3.5 stars

There are fourteen chapters in this book covering America’s imperialism and transgressions over the past century. Most of the topics are interesting although the writing from chapter to chapter is a little uneven.

I found the chapter on the 1973 CIA led coup in Chile most fascinating and one of the best researched. I also liked the coverage on the American invasion of Panama.

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Sep 16, 2014 Tim rated it it was ok

This is a rather uneven read of US history. I sympathize with the author and get what he is doing - namely, describing a variety of rather sordid instances where the US overthrew, undermined, encouraged, aided & abetted regime change.

Not a pretty picture, and for the instances Kinzer covers, I don't doubt his narratives are true.

My problem with the book is the rather arbitrary selection of events, and varied coverage of each. Hawaii leads it off, there is a lot on the small Central American coun This is a rather uneven read of US history. I sympathize with the author and get what he is doing - namely, describing a variety of rather sordid instances where the US overthrew, undermined, encouraged, aided & abetted regime change.

Not a pretty picture, and for the instances Kinzer covers, I don't doubt his narratives are true.

My problem with the book is the rather arbitrary selection of events, and varied coverage of each. Hawaii leads it off, there is a lot on the small Central American countries that we've pushed around and fiddled with, some on Iran, and of course Iraq.

But to be specific - there is a tinge of politics in this. Sometimes, and mostly, it is the CIA or business interests that seem to be zeroed in on, while the responsibility of Presidents comes and goes. So was it mainly the CIA rogue in Chile, or a directive ordered from the White House? Or in Iran? Or what about Cuba.

I think one would be better off reading specifics on any one of the countries and changes involved to get a deeper understanding.

What is missing besides a true probing of responsibility - Presidents, business interests, rogue agencies, etc. - are a selective set of cases themselves. Why the focus on Granada or Panama (the Noriega case, not the original breaking off of that section of Colombia so we could have a Canal ...), yet not a mention of the US CIA role in the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba in Zaire (with our "friend" Mobutu as our consolation prize). Or there is practically just one sentence on our favorite son John F Kennedy's presiding over the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, though plenty of responsibility laid on Presidents that Kinzer doesn't like.

Finally, these incidents and intrigue over 100 years seems to leave out the major context of the times. There was no doubt an ugly period in the imperialist 1890s to World War 1, but it differs a great deal from the ugliness of Cold War geopolitical intrigues from the 1950s to 1989. I don't think Kinzer explains the two times very well and how it affected "whoever" it was that directed some of these actions. Then we move on to the post Cold War period with the 1991 gulf war, the rise of Islamic extremists, etc. All of these larger perspectives play into the tactics and decisions of the foreign policy decisions of the US.

...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Kiesha rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

If you are feeling anti-American and want some fodder to fuel your righteous indignation, look no further. Ever wondered why so many Yanks travel with Canadian flag patches on their rucksacks? Kinzer describes why in painful, explicit detail. Every single page I turned was like torture, but I couldn't look away. The chapter titled 'Despotism and Godless Terrorism' even caught my travel neighbor's eye on a recent flight. The greed and hubris of some of the American leaders described in the book i ...more

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Sep 19, 2014 Jennifer rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, own, hawaii, islands, history, politics, war

Got the book to read the section on Hawai'i. Should have stopped there as I had originally planned. Found the book rather one sided & biased at times. I am sure we have many skeletons in the closet & much to be ashamed for but in light of 9/11, al-Qaeda and now ISIS, the United States is fighting their own terror and daily overthrow plots. Found parts of it very interesting & other parts dull. As others have said some of the claims in this book are very shocking & sensational. Wondering how well ...more

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Mar 17, 2018 Ian . rated it it was amazing

I've been interested in the history of U.S. for a while, especially the foreign policy, military operations, corporations and finance. This book covers basically all these topics. It is well known that U.S. government has overthrown many legitimate foreign governments back in the history, this book just covers all these operations in sequence, analysis the background and similarities.

It is also interesting to compare U.S. to Soviet Union and Russia. Common belief is that U.S. intervenes in othe ...more

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Nov 27, 2019 Denise rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2019

This narrative history provides an overview of US interventions in foreign countries that led directly to the fall of those countries' governments from the toppling of the Hawaiian monarchy in the late 19th century to the invasion of Iraq. A good starting point for those wanting to dig into some of America's more unsavoury (to put it mildly) foreign policy moves in the past century (and then some), though it could have used more detail and the analysis part was somewhat lacking in places. 3.5/5 ...more

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Feb 16, 2019 Stephen rated it liked it

Shelves: middle-east, persia-iran, south-america, history, world-affairs

The prolonged debacle in the middle east is not, sadly, an exception in modern American foreign policy. Since the late 19th century, the powers that be in DC have repeatedly looked abroad – both with honest avarice and with idealistic dreams of remaking the world in an Empire of Liberty. In Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer delivers a review of its actions, beginning with the seizure of Hawaii, covering seemingly every country in central and South America save Brazil, and ending up in the Ozymandian was The prolonged debacle in the middle east is not, sadly, an exception in modern American foreign policy. Since the late 19th century, the powers that be in DC have repeatedly looked abroad – both with honest avarice and with idealistic dreams of remaking the world in an Empire of Liberty. In Overthrow, Stephen Kinzer delivers a review of its actions, beginning with the seizure of Hawaii, covering seemingly every country in central and South America save Brazil, and ending up in the Ozymandian wastes of Afghanistan and Iraq, delivered with a slightly journalistic flair.

Because of the popularity of books like those penned by Howard Zinn, some of these adventures are not as unknown as they once were. Popular ignorance about the events, however, is chronic. When Cuba and Iran roiled in revolution and their people spoke of previous interference from America, few in the United States knew what they meant — even American leadership. The scales of American involvement in the countries detailed here — places as small as the isle of Grenada, and as large a Afghanistan — vary from clandestine coups arranged by the CIA, to outright invasions. The interventions often happen in connection with “helping” the people in the target country, either to save them from themselves (Cuba, the Phillipines), to secure democracy (Hawaii, Iraq), or to prevent worse evils from occurring (most of Central and South America). Teddy Roosevelt’s role in interventionist wars is no surprise, but Eisenhower arguably accounts for more. Considering how he warned the American people about a military-industrial complex driving all too much of public policy, that comes as something of a surprise. Eisenhower invariably got involved in these outside adventures out of fear of the Soviet Union’s rising influence, however, and it’s possible that he realized he was manipulated in retrospect, and based his warning on that. This is only speculation on my part, however.

I mentioned Howard Zinn earlier, because his history published decades before exposed more Americans than ever to the bare facts of these events, and Kinzer does not go into that much more detail. What he has is documented, but in tone it struck me as more of a newspaper-esque expose in book form than a work of history, making the regime-change events more dramatic than necessary by having DC attack men on false pretenses every single time. This kind of foreign intervention can still be argued against even when the persons targeted are objectively awful human beings; it isn’t necessary to make them angels first. Frankly, I’ve been a bit wary about Kinzer since he revealed he keeps a portrait of the dictator Ataturk in his office.

While Americans definitely need to be more aware of their government’s history in this regard — both to guard against future excursions and to understand why there might be resentment between our neighbors and ourselves — Overthrow doesn’t quite suit the task. ...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Christopher rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics, history, united-states, international-affairs

Though it's now three years old, Kinzer's survey of America's century of "regime change" is still an impressive work for anyone interested in American foreign policy and diplomatic history. Starting with the coup that overthrew Hawaii's native monarchy and ending with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Kinzer takes the reader through three distinct phases of American regime change: the imperialist phase, the covert phase, and the invasion phase. Each chapter focuses on a specific country and the coup or ...more

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Oct 03, 2008 Dale rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics, favorites, history, nonfiction

The most startling thing about this book is the extent to which the official propaganda about US imperialism has remained unchanged over the past century. In each case of 'regime change', the official explanation is always that the US is 'intervening' to 'combat repression' and 'promote democracy'. The real reasons are usually evident to anyone who is paying even moderately close attention: the country in question either has resources that are wanted by US corporations, or the existing governmen ...more

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Feb 03, 2014 Martin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, non-comics, reviewed, current-events

Ever ask yourself something along the lines of, 'Wouldn't it be great if a book about [insert topic] existed?' Well, I thought it would be cool if there was a book about the United States' um, ...'interventions' in foreign countries. Imagine my surprise to find this one. And while the author mentions that this book 'focuses only on the most extreme set of cases: those in which the United States arranged to depose foreign leaders' and 'treats only cases in which Americans played the decisive role ...more

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Sep 30, 2007 Johnsergeant added it

Shelves: audiblecom, audiobook

Downloaded from Audible.com

Narrator: Michael Prichard
Publisher: Tantor Media, 2006
Length: 15 hours and 13 min.

Publisher's Summary

A fast-paced narrative history of the coups, revolutions, and invasions by which the United States has toppled 14 foreign governments, not always to its own benefit.

"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian mon ...more

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Jun 24, 2007 Mark Desrosiers rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

This gripping narrative should underscore a deeper historical current, and I bet the author was a tad too anti-ideological to pick it up. And that's the major failing of this astonishing book. The story of Hawaii, for example, seems bizarre in a way because such B-grade characters carried it out against an obviously powerful Queen. How did that really happen? Benjamin Harrison's mighty approval?

And where did Noriega REALLY come from? Not to mention Edward Landsdale, who was Magsaysay's kingmaker ...more

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Dec 27, 2008 John rated it it was amazing

Every American should read this book. Talking to people outside the
U.S., especially in Latin America, I was always surprised about how
much there is a dislike of U.S. interference in foreign affairs. Not
any more. Sure, Kinzer has somewhat of an agenda, but it never hurts to
know one's own history better. Kinzer explores the 14 regimes the U.S.
has directly overthrown, and then, after each epoch, gives nice summary
of the results of those actions. Needless to say, things rarely turned
out as expected. ...more

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Nov 10, 2007 Linda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history, highly-recommended, politics, social-and-economic-justice

If I had to summarize my thoughts about this book into a single sentence, I would only need to say that Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow should be required reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the relationship of the U.S. to the rest of the world. In it, Kinzer looks at over a dozen examples of U.S. intervention in foreign countries since the turn of the 20th century and presents them together to illustrate a sordid, damaging, and largely unbroken history of what is now blandly called “r If I had to summarize my thoughts about this book into a single sentence, I would only need to say that Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow should be required reading for anyone with even a passing interest in the relationship of the U.S. to the rest of the world. In it, Kinzer looks at over a dozen examples of U.S. intervention in foreign countries since the turn of the 20th century and presents them together to illustrate a sordid, damaging, and largely unbroken history of what is now blandly called “regime change”.

This one took me substantially longer to read than I expected, simply because the outrage I felt at reading about each cynical intervention made it impossible for me to read more than one chapter at a time. Again and again, the U.S. has contrived to overthrow democratically elected leaders (many who had already demonstrated progress in improving conditions for the citizens of their own countries) and installed autocratic, sometimes pliant, usually violent, dictatorial regimes abroad, all the while presenting to the American people the image of itself as a benevolent force for peace and democracy around the world.

Anyone who already looks at American policy with a critical eye will not necessarily be shocked by what Kinzer recounts here, but laying them out together draws out a continuity of purpose that runs through all of the interventions. The chapters are grouped into three coherent and useful sections, beginning with what Kinzer labels the an American “imperial phase”, documenting the first stumbling steps of the nation’s leadership into a forceful, expansionist policy beyond U.S. territorial limits (in Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Honduras). The second part of the book deals with post-WWII uses of covert action (in Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, and Chile) to depose foreign governments deemed unfriendly the U.S., usually under the banner of anti-communism. The third and final section sees a post-Cold War return to overt military invasion (in Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq), though unlike the operations of the early 20th century, these can no longer acceptably be treated as justified exercises of imperial power, and are now superficially couched in nicer rationales. Individual chapters focus on a single country or a region of connected smaller conflicts, and then each section is capped by an epilogue-type summary chapter, reviewing what has happened in the countries of focus in the years since, and synthesizing a broader critique of the intervention policy.

The book makes a powerful argument about the nature of U.S. foreign intervention, though my primary complaint about it is that at times, Kinzer seems to miss his own point. For example, the chapters in Part Two demonstrate persuasively that pure individual/corporate financial interest was responsible for U.S. coups in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile, yet in his summary chapter for this section, Kinzer gives unwarranted credence to the notion that the U.S. had merely “misjudged” nationalist actions in those countries as expressions of global communism. While the individual chapters make clear the decisive role that capital interests played in putting coups into motion, Kinzer argues that, “Americans overthrew governments only when economic interest coincided with ideological ones.” (p. 215) The circumstances he presents in previous chapters, however, more convincingly support the conclusion that the ideological argument was conveniently dragooned into service whenever the capitalist crisis was urgent enough. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine it could be otherwise in a country where the titans of business have historically played such a direct role in national government. Take, for example, this passage from Part One of the book, where Kinzer diagrams the deep intermingling of the United Fruit Company and the U.S. government (p. 129-130):

Few private companies have ever been as closely interwoven with the United States government as United Fruit was during the mid-1950s. [Secretary of State John Foster] Dulles had, for decades, been one of its principal legal counselors. His brother, Allen, the CIA director, had also done legal work for the company and owned a substantial block of its stock. John Moors Cabot, the assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, was a large shareholder. So was his brother, Thomas Dudley Cabot, the director of international security affairs in the State Department, who had been United Fruit's president. General Robert Cutler, head of the National Security Council, was its former chairman of the board. John J. McCloy, the president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was a former board member. Both undersecretary of state Walter Bedell Smith and Robert Hill, the American ambassador to Costa Rica, would join the board after leaving government service.

This is not merely the typical case of close personal ties between wealthy, patrician businessmen and wealthy, patrician politicians. This is state power wielded by men with a direct, overt financial interest in the outcome.

At minimum, Kinzer’s argument that capital interests would be insufficient justification for intervention without coincident ideological passion on the part of U.S. officials would be substantially more credible if he offered any counter examples of incidents where capital had not gotten its way. The bigger problem is that Kinzer’s position gives too much credit to U.S. leadership. In Kinzer’s view, the U.S. government’s use of anti-communism as justification for intervention, “was the easy way out, an extreme form of intellectual laziness.” (p. 215) The truth is more simple and less benign than that. What the ultra-rich (and ultra-politically-powerful) are most concerned about is losing their capital. When their capital interests have been under threat in foreign countries contemplating nationalization of private companies, or facing competition from new national companies, the U.S. has reliably come to their aid -- whether under cover of the fight against communism or the war on terror. The ideological rationale is incidental.

I picked up Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism at the same time as I bought Overthrow, and while I have yet to read Shock Doctrine, they seem like a natural pairing even more now then they did then. (For one thing, I imagine I’ll find more of the type of argument I’m talking about in Klein’s book than in Overthrow). But even though I disagree with Kinzer’s conclusions to some extent, my criticisms are minimal. It is an outstanding book, engagingly paced, accessibly written, and well documented. Bottom line: essential reading. ...more

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Feb 24, 2021 Allison Kay rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites

This took me about a month to read because I really wanted to read and soak in every word. I think this should be a required reading for every American.
I thought since the beginning of my IR degree that the US government thinks they're ideologically superior, and believe it is their duty to spread that ideology abroad. However, reading more literature like Kinzer, teaches you that's all cover-up-eugenic bullshit. The US is not based on ideology of spreading freedom and democracy to all. The US b ...more

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About Stephen Kinzer

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Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents. His articles and books have led the Washington Post to place him "among the best in popular foreign policy storytelling." (source) ...more

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Kerine Wint is a software engineering graduate with more love for books than for computers. As an avid reader, writer, and fan of all things...

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“Americans had to choose between permitting them to become democracies or maintaining power over them. It was an easy choice.” — 5 likes

“Expansion presented the United States with a dilemma that has confronted many colonial powers. If it allowed democracy to flower in the countries it controlled, those nations would begin acting in accordance with their own interests rather than the interests of the United States, and American influence over them would diminish.” — 4 likes

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