Tag Archives: imperialism

Marc-William Palen PAX ECONOMICA: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World

As cruel wars rage across three continents and civilian casualties soar, it is easy to forget, or perhaps never to have known, that people have been analyzing the causes of war and organizing and working for peace for a very long time. These days, the term FREE TRADE is associated with right wing free marketers and multi-national corporate globalization, but this was not the story in the 19th century. Beginning in the 1840s, left-wing globalists became the leaders of the transnational peace and anti-imperialist movements of their times.

Marc-Allen Palen is an historian at the University of Exeter specializing in the intersection of British and American imperialism within the broader history of globalization since 1800. He is co-director of The History and Policy Global Economics and History Forum in London. His commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC, the BBC, and the Conversation, among other international journals. He is the editor of the Imperial & Global Forum. His earlier book is The ‘Conspiracy’ of Free Trade: the Anglo-American Struggle over Empire and Economic Globalization, 1846-1896.

His second book, Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World is published by Princeton University Press. In it, he explores how political economy, gender, humanitarianism, religion and ideology have shaped global imperial expansion. He documents the evolution of thinking about the impact of trade policies with social theories and the connections made not only across the Atlantic, but around the world, linking those policies with war and peace. Hard as it may be to believe these days, by the end of 19th century, an unlikely alliance of liberal radicals, socialist internationalists, feminists, and Christians envisioned free trade as essential for a prosperous and peaceful world order. And they struggled, too, with rampant nationalism, protectionism and geopolitical conflict, as well as exploitation of underdeveloped regions. The more I learned about the actual history, which Dr. Palen documents, the more dismayed I was that this history has been hidden, and the more determined I became to share it.
We spoke with Marc-William Palen on February 20th via Skype.

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Stephen Kinzer – The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, & the Birth of American Empire

“In a ravenous 55 day spasm during the summer of 1898, the United States asserted control over 5 far-flung lands with a total of 11 million inhabitants: Guam, Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. Never in history has a nation leaped so suddenly overseas empire.” Doing so was by no means a matter of political consensus. In fact at several steps on the way, a single individual or vote determined events, leading to the deaths of thousands. The questions that arose then, continue to arise to this day.
“How should the United States act in the world? Americans cannot decide. For more than a century we have debated with ourselves. We can’t even agree on the question. Put one way: Should we defend our freedom, or turn inward and ignore growing threats? Put differently: Should we charge violently into faraway lands, or allow others to work out their own destinies?” And how did a country which had been founded through rebellion against a distant sovereign, which had once been a colony itself, and had pledged itself, above all, to the ideal of self-government, turn to taking colonies of its own – and most certainly NOT with the consent of the governed? These are some of the questions, our guest today, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Stephen Kinzer, addresses in his latest book, THE TRUE FLAG: THEODORE ROOSEVELT, MARK TWAIN, AND THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN EMPIRE. This is not merely an exercise in ivory tower history, because the United States – and, in fact, the world – is still paying today for the arguments, decisions and methods made by those debating these questions in the era of Theodore Roosevelt. Central America, the Middle East, The far east, terrorism, immigration, indigenous efforts for democracy – all these conflicts – and more – can find origins in a very short period of time at the turn of the 19th & the 20th centuries.

Stephen Kinzer has covered more than 50 countries on 5 continents. From 1983 to 1989 He was the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, where he covered war and upheaval in Central America. He wrote 2 books about that region, BITTER FRUIT: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE AMERICAN COUP IN GUATEMALA (co-written with Stephen Schlesinger), and BLOOD OF BROTHERS: LIFE AND WAR IN NICARAGUA. He was the New York Times bureau chief in Bonn, & then Berlin, Germany from 1990 -96, where he covered the emergence of post-Communist Europe, including the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Then, he opened their bureau in Istanbul, Turkey, where he covered that country and the new nations of Central Asia & the Caucasus. HIS BOOK, CRESCENT AND STAR: TURKEY BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, was born of that experience. After several trips to Iran, he wrote ALL THE SHAH’S MEN: AN AMERICAN COUP AND THE ROOTS OF MIDDLE EAST TERROR and RESET: IRAN, TURKEY AND AMERICA’S FUTURE. His latest book is THE TRUE FLAG: THEODORE ROOSEVELT, MARK TWAIN, AND THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN EMPIRE, published last year by Henry Holt. The paperback edition is coming out in two weeks from St. Martin’s/Griffin. It adds to his earlier book, OVERTHROW: AMERICA’S CENTURY OF REGIME CHANGE FROM HAWAII TO IRAQ, which documents 14 times the United States has overthrown foreign governments, and examines just what is it in the American psyche, that allows – and compels – the world’s first nation to throw off colonial rule and proclaim self government as a self-evident divine right to suppress similar aspirations in lands over seas.

Col. Theodore Roosevelt

Grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. orchestrated the CIA’s “Operation Ajax”, which aimed to overthrow democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, who had been Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1951:

A CIA hired mob – who beat all Mossadeq supporters to a pulp….

“This coup did more than simply bring down Mossadegh. It ended democratic rule in Iran and set the country off toward distatoship. Mohammad Reza Shah gave the U. S. a quarter century of dominance in Iran, but his repression ultimately set off an uprising that produced a fanatically anti-American regime.” from Kinzer’s RESET: IRAN, TURKEY & AMERICA’S FUTURE.

Mohammad Reza Shah and family before the Peacock Throne

Alfred McCoy – IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF US GLOBAL POWER

This edition of Forthright Radio was originally broadcast on October 4, 2017, the 60th anniversary of the launching by the Soviet Union of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, which triggered the Space Race.

Our guest today, Professor Alfred McCoy, writes of this and much more about the history for global dominance in his latest book, IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF US GLOBAL POWER, just published by Haymarket Books.

Alfred McCoy, who holds the Harrington Chair in History at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, has been shaking up our understanding and beliefs about the role of the United States in the world since 1970, when he co-edited LAOS: WAR AND REVOLUTION .

His research led him to publish THE POLITICS OF HEROIN IN SOUTHEAST ASIA, in 1972, which led to his testifying before the foreign operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee in June of that year about the role of the CIA in the production and distribution of heroin. Among his numerous other books are POLICING AMERICA’S EMPIRE: THE UNITED STATES, THE PHILIPINES AND THE RISE OF THE SURVEILLANCE STATE; A QUESTION OF TORTURE: CIA INTERROGATION, FROM THE COLD WAR TO THE WAR ON TERROR. In 2012 Yale University awarded him the Wilbur Cross Medal for work as “one of the world’s leading historians of Southeast Asia and an expert on … international political surveillance.”

In this interview, we discuss the geopolitics of global dominance; the covert netherworld of U.S. government agencies colluding with international drug cartels at the same time the military ineffectively attempts to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan; the rapid rise of China as a dominant force; cyberwarfare; the vulnerability of our and much more.