Book Review: *The Secret History* of the American Empire

[ Info/Order] The brand new book by John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is another "must read" book if you want to understand global economics or, put more bluntly, why Nicaragua and other third world nations have so little.

If you look at Confessions as a book about what Perkins did while being an economic hit man for the World Bank and such, this book is about what he has learned by integrating his previous experience with his chance to see the effects.

The book has five parts: the fist four being regional and the fifth on what can be done to "fix things". The regions are Asia, Latin America, The Middle East and Africa. If you only have the time or energy to read 75 pages and care about Latin America, read that section. There is a lot to be learned. Of course, the other regions offer similar info, just about different places.

For example, when talking about his meetings with Bolivian leaders in his EHM position, he says:

After those initial meetings in the 1970s, I concluded that Bolivia was ripe for privatization. La Paz's businessmen and politicians were eager to expand the model initiated by the mining companies. Although this amounted to a sellout of their nation's sovereignty, it relieved them from the burden of raising funds through taxation, capital market, and their own bank account to develop water, sewage, and electrical facilities, transportation and communications networks and even educational and penal systems. With my help, they also understood that they would receive lucrative subcontacting jobs, ...

On talking about changing the dream he says:

The United States exemplified democracy and justice for about two hundred years. ...

Since the end of World War II, however, our position as leader has eroded, the model we presented to the world undermined by a corprotocracy hell-bent on empire building.
...
High school students throughout Latin America understood that the United States had overthrown Chile's Allende, Iran's Mossadegh, Guatemala's Arbenz, Brazil's Goulart and Iran's Qasim--even if our own students were unaware of such things.

For the "conservatives" concerned that Perkins is just going to say "they need a handout", that is far from the case. His optimistic ending talks about what we can do to give them a chance, not a handout. Expect to find quotes from Ike, for example, along with quotes from activists. There is a lot to learn in this book.