WOW! What an eye-opener. After this book, I felt like I must have been sleeping through my history classes in school because I don’t remember ever getting the detail you will find here. O.K. elementary/middle school glosses over some of the hard core stuff whereas highschool becomes more detailed however this is hard facts in your face that are shocking to say the least. The political powers that drove the U.S. from President McKinley’s time with the push of Henry Cabot Lodge and Teddy Roosevelt drove the United States to become an Imperialist nation. What??? The behind the scenes horrific information that you will learn here about political operatives that were happening in other lands disguised as liberating other peoples from the dictatorial states they were in under foreign control only to subjugate people who were fighting for their freedom just as the U.S. had from English rule –wow! Yogi Berra was right it was déjà vu all over again. What the Founding Fathers fought for – Independence from a foreign power trying to subjugate the citizens of this country – then for the U.S. to do that to the then nations of Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico which are the first ones mentioned and which take the most of the book about – in clear disregard of what principles this nation was founded upon – began to claim territory and sovereignty over other non-warring people. It is unconscionable what took place. America’s political parties were at odds against such horror but the Republican party forwarded their expansionist platform under McKinley then Roosevelt who wanted to pursue war with everyone he could and acquiring more territory for the U.S. The book ends with a litany of expansionist/imperialist tacks done by several regimes since on both sides of the political parties. The horrendous acts carried out will stun most readers who like me had no idea that this land we are so much a part of was carrying out behind the flag of liberation the bullying of smaller island nations unable to stand against the superior weapons and agendas of the corrupt in power. It gives you a whole new perspective on the Cuba situation and you will come away questioning what you were taught in school and those parts of history that seem to be a footnote rather than examining what all took place. Your jaw will drop often during this read. It will explain a lot that is going on in the world and why we are seen as the ugly American by so many nations in the world. This book is a mind blower.
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