University of California Press
The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State Volume 48
Key Metrics
- David Vine
- University of California Press
- Paperback
- 9780520385689
- -
- -
- History > United States - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
A provocative examination of how the U.S. military has shaped our entire world, from today's costly, endless wars to the prominence of violence in everyday American life.
The United States has been fighting wars constantly since invading Afghanistan in 2001. This nonstop warfare is far less exceptional than it might seem: the United States has been at war or has invaded other countries almost every year since independence. In The United States of War, David Vine traces this pattern of bloody conflict from Columbus's 1494 arrival in Guantanamo Bay through the 250-year expansion of a global US empire. Drawing on historical and firsthand anthropological research in fourteen countries and territories, The United States of War demonstrates how US leaders across generations have locked the United States in a self-perpetuating system of permanent war by constructing the world's largest-ever collection of foreign military bases--a global matrix that has made offensive interventionist wars more likely. Beyond exposing the profit-making desires, political interests, racism, and toxic masculinity underlying the country's relationship to war and empire, The United States of War shows how the long history of U.S. military expansion shapes our daily lives, from today's multi-trillion-dollar wars to the pervasiveness of violence and militarism in everyday U.S. life. The book concludes by confronting the catastrophic toll of American wars--which have left millions dead, wounded, and displaced--while offering proposals for how we can end the fighting.
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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