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Sign up todayBlowback
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Learn moreThe term “blowback,” invented by the CIA, refers to the unintended consequences of American actions abroad. In this incisive and controversial book, Chalmers Johnson lays out in vivid detail the dangers faced by our overextended empire, which insists on projecting its military power to every corner of the earth and using American capital and markets to force global economic integration on its own terms.
From a case of rape by US servicemen in Okinawa to our role in Asia’s financial crisis, from our early support for Saddam Hussein to our conduct in the Balkans, Johnson reveals the ways in which our misguided policies are planting the seeds of future disaster.
In a new edition that addresses recent international events from 9/11 to the war in Iraq, this now classic book remains as prescient and powerful as ever.
Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, is the author of the bestselling books Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis, which make up his Blowback Trilogy. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, the London Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, Nation, and TomDispatch.com. He lives near San Diego, California.
Tom Weiner, a dialogue director and voice artist best known for his roles in video games and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Transformers, is the winner of eight Earphones Awards and Audie Award finalist. He is a former member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Reviews
“Boldly provocative…A useful and timely alert.”
“Stunning…No one has exposed shortsightedness, hubris, corruption, and the instability of our country’s imperial overreach with such impassioned incisiveness. Blowback is a wake-up call for America.”
“A brilliant and iconoclastic assault on American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.”
“Johnson is on to something…It is indeed a new post–Cold War ballgame, and Johnson’s warning, if it were heeded in Washington, would help keep America safe from the temptation of untrammeled power.”
“Blowback is expansive thinking…a straight-talking analysis of America’s global conduct during the Cold War and since, and what we’re eventually going to pay for it.”
“This no-holds-barred indictment of what Johnson calls the post-Cold War American ‘global empire’ is not for the faint of heart…His chilling conclusion—backed by copious and livid detail—is that a nation reaps precisely what it sows.”
“This is edgy, unconventional wisdom that deserves hearing and debating.”
“Engrossing and at the same time alarming, Johnson’s well-researched book nevertheless presents an easy solution to fundamental problems that have usually forced great powers into catastrophic predicaments.”
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