Princeton University Press
Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia
Key Metrics
- David Vine
- Princeton University Press
- Paperback
- 9780691149837
- 9.1 X 6 X 0.9 inches
- 0.92 pounds
- History > Military - United States
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
The American military base on the island of Diego Garcia is one of the most strategically important and secretive U.S. military installations outside the United States. Located near the remote center of the Indian Ocean and accessible only by military transport, the little-known base has been instrumental in American military operations from the Cold War to the war on terror and may house a top-secret CIA prison where terror suspects are interrogated and tortured. But Diego Garcia harbors another dirty secret, one that has been kept from most of the world--until now.
Island of Shame is the first major book to reveal the shocking truth of how the United States conspired with Britain to forcibly expel Diego Garcia's indigenous people--the Chagossians--and deport them to slums in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where most live in dire poverty to this day. Drawing on interviews with Washington insiders, military strategists, and exiled islanders, as well as hundreds of declassified documents, David Vine exposes the secret history of Diego Garcia. He chronicles the Chagossians' dramatic, unfolding story as they struggle to survive in exile and fight to return to their homeland. Tracing U.S. foreign policy from the Cold War to the war on terror, Vine shows how the United States has forged a new and pervasive kind of empire that is quietly dominating the planet with hundreds of overseas military bases.
Island of Shame is an unforgettable expos� of the human costs of empire and a must-read for anyone concerned about U.S. foreign policy and its consequences. The author will donate all royalties from the sale of this book to the Chagossians.
Author Bio
David Vine is Professor of political anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. David's newest book, The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State?, was published by the University of California Press. The book was a finalist for the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prize in History.
The United States of War is the third in a trilogy of books about war and peace. The other books in the trilogy are Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2015) and Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press, 2009).
As part of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, David helped compile and write Militarization: A Reader (Duke University Press, 2019) and The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society, (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009). David's other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Boston Globe, Huffington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others.
David is a board member of the Costs of War Project and a co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition. David is a contributor to TomDispatch.com and Foreign Policy in Focus.
As a believer in the importance of public education systems (apologies to American University), David is proud to have received his PhD and MA degrees from the City University of New York's Graduate Center.
David feels at home in many places but has lived for much of his life in New York City, Oakland, and the Washington, DC area, where he was briefly a dancing waiter.
All royalties from David's books and all speaker honorariums are donated to the Chagossian people and nonprofit organizations serving other victims of war.
Source: davidvine.net
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