America as Overlord: From World War Two to the Vietnam War

by Hal Draper, Samuel Farber (Foreword by)

Overview

From 1932 until his death in 1990, Hal Draper was a prolific Marxist writer and socialist organizer who successfully combined rigorous research and passionate outrage to assess his political era. In this still-indispensable collection of essays written in the 1950s and 60s, Draper grapples with the role of the United States in the world, situating post-war American imperialism in a global picture of capitalist competition and expansion. The essays in this volume include Draper’s discussions of the United States' involvement in Guatemala, Guam, Samoa, Cuba, Vietnam, and elsewhere, as well as his, more general, socialist guide to national liberation movements.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798888900253
Publisher:	Haymarket Books
Publication date:	02/07/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

The late Hal Draper was the author of many books, including the five-volume study of Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, as well as Socialism from Below and Berkeley: The New Student Revolt. He was also a prominent socialist journalist and editor of the journal Labor Action from 1948-1958.

Samuel Farber was born and raised in Marianao, Cuba, and came to the United States in February 1958. He obtained a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969 and taught at a number of colleges and universities including UCLA and, most recently, Brooklyn College, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science. His scholarship on Cuba is extensive and includes many articles and several books. Farber was active in the Cuban high school student movement against Fulgencio Batista in the 1950s, and has been involved in socialist politics for more than fifty years.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Samuel Farber
Publisher’s Note

1. Beyond Yalta: The Truth About the Second World War
2. America as Arbiter: An Essay in Historical Perspective
3. The Case of Guatemala
4. America’s Colonies – Okinawa, Samoa, Guam
5. The Crime of Okinawa: American Bulldozers at Work on the “Cyprus of the Pacific”
6. Guam: Island on Your Conscience
7. Who Cares About Samoa?
8. Kennedy’s Disastrous Cuban Policy
9. The Revolutionary Potential in Vietnam
10. The ABC of National Liberation: A Political Guide

Editorial Reviews

[Hal Draper is] the embodiment of what a Marxist scholar should be...a political practitioner of the first order...Draper’s approach is today very useful in understanding and reaching political conclusions based on a democratic and revolutionary socialist perspective regarding such diverse places and conflicts as Syria, Hong Kong, Iran, and especially Ukraine.” —Samuel Farber, from the Foreword

From the Publisher