The Global Occupy movement has a new weapon, and what a powerful, incendiary weapon it is. Oliver Stone, better known for his thought-provoking catalogue of films, has teamed up with historian Peter Kuznick to produce a genuine stick of literary dynamite entitled, The Untold History of the United States. Knowledge is power goes the old adage and Stone and Kuznick have done the world’s 99% a massive service in producing what is in effect a succinct and compelling history of US imperialism in the 20th century. OK, Noam Chomsky has already done much of the leg work over the past five decades but Stone, by adding his notoriety status to the project, has made this history that much more accessible. Committed anti-imperialists regularly read Chomsky but now it is hoped millions of main-street Americans will eventually get to read this untold history.

The book deserves to be reviewed chapter by chapter because this work is just too damn important to be given the single broad brush treatment, though for the moment I will content myself with a few preliminary contents concerning the introduction. You only have to read this introduction, Roots of Empire: War is a Racket to get a taste of what is to follow. Right from the start Stone produces something that is eminently readable, well documented and uncompromisingly blunt. Just what the doctor ordered. Every person who remotely cares for human progress should get a copy and wave it in the face of the nearest right wing reactionary chauvinist. The Republican Right as well as a good many Democrats will fear this book and so they should.

If the Introduction has one fault, and it is a major one in my opinion, it is that it deals only in the most cursory way with the genocidal European expansion carried out in the Americas at the expense of the indigenous peoples. This oversight is compounded by an equally cursory treatment of the long period of European slavery at the expense of what we now refer to as African Americans. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that Stone and Kuznick are fully conversant with both these bloody and shameful episodes and I guess they opted not to dwell on these twin foundations of Empire in the interests of brevity. A mistaken decision I fear, given that what follows in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries is a direct corollary of what happened in earlier centuries. Notwithstanding this decision, what they do produce in the introduction is brilliantly explosive and sets the scene for the future chapters.

In the only reference to the roots of empire Stone quotes historian Paul Kennedy:

From the time the first settlers arrived in Virginia from England and started moving westwards, this was an imperial nation, a conquering nation Pxv.

S&K consolidate the point:

This sometimes genocidal hunger for others land and resources was always couched in the highest of motives a commitment to altruistically advancing freedom, progress and civilization and continues to be so today. As William Appleman Williams, one of the earliest and most insightful students of American Empire, explained, The routine lust for land, markets, or security became justifications for noble rhetoric about prosperity, liberty and security. Pxv

Then, quoting Samuel Huntington, S&K add:

The West won the world not by the superiority of ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do. Pxv

Having dispensed with the foundations of Empire in these all too brief but entirely accurate few lines, S&K leap forward to the late nineteenth century, a time where the US starts to flex its imperial muscles and to reveal its international ambitions. It wanted to catch up with its European forebears though the pattern of empire was to be a little different, a little more sophisticated in a bloody sort of way. Here S&K are very precise as to how the contours of the US Empire are to look:

Confusion over US imperial status has resulted from the fact that the United States exercises the power and functions of empire but does not take on the traditional trappings for one. Clearly, it has not followed the path of European colonial empires, although it has occasionally dabbled in colonial ventures. They have, for the most part, been adjuncts to overseas economic penetration constituting what some have called an open door empire, one more concerned with control of markets and other forms of economic domination than with controlling subject populations and actual territory. The United States has, however, repeatedly resorted to military force and even prolonged occupations to deal with threats to those economic interests and private investments. Pxvii

All previous empires have gloried in their power, proclaiming it publically at every opportunity and taking great joy in humiliating their subjugated slaves. We need only look at the trappings of empire the British gratuitously displayed in their Indian Raj. The US imperial rulers are not interested in all that ostentatious imperial strutting. The only thing that is of concern to our North American overlords is the bottom line the profit margin. But even that is not the whole truth. They, the high priests of capital, love to be loved. So it is Hollywood, Disney Land and popular culture that lead the forces of occupation. It is only when this soft power fails that military shock and awe is employed. So cleverly deployed is this US soft power that if you were to ask the 99% of citizens in the US if they were living in the heart of a belligerent global empire they would look at you with bemusement. That is the genius of US power, a toxic amalgam of Hollywood and an apocalyptic arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons. And then there are the army of drones.

The great thing about S&K’s work is their ability to let the leading imperial protagonists speak for themselves. If Stone and Kuznick were only to present their own polemic they could easily be dismissed as left wing propaganda, which will surely happen anyway. But by digging out the necessary incriminating quotes, they make it that much more difficult for the naysayers to dismiss their work. Here is a quote that S&K have dug up from a Senator Albert Beverage of Indiana delivered to a packed Senate chamber in January 1900.It tells us all we need to know about the mood and mentality of the US ruling class.

The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East Most future wars will be conflicts for commerce. The power that rules the Pacific, therefore, is the power that rules the world. And, with the Philippines, that power is and will forever be the American Republic God has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for all of us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possible to man. We are the trustees of the world’s progress, guardians of its righteous peace. The judgement of the Master is upon us: Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will render you ruler over many things Pxxv

Fine words to cover the imperial slaughter at home and abroad. The Filipinos who dared to resist their enslavement were brutally tortured and butchered. Meanwhile in the US the lynchings of African Americans went on unchecked. All this with the blessings of the Almighty. Rest assured, any nation that claims God’s special blessings is intent on some imperial bloodletting on an industrial scale. And sure enough, the US Empire in the 20th century did not disappoint. Three million Vietnamese, two million Koreans, one million Cambodians, one million Indonesians, unknown thousands in Central and South America and the numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan just keep on growing. S&K lay it all bare in the chapters that follow.