Argues that the "axis of evil" label applied by Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address is illusory, challenging current beliefs and fear-mongering practices with historical and political information about each targeted nation. Reprint.

Depicted as an insular and forbidding police state with an "insane" dictator at its helm, North Korea—charter member of Bush's "Axis of Evil"—is a country the U.S. loves to hate. Now the CIA says it possesses nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as long-range missiles capable of delivering them to America's West Coast. But, as Bruce Cumings demonstrates in this provocative, lively read, the story of the U.S.-Korea conflict is more complex than our leaders or our news media would have us believe. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of Korea, and on declassified government reports, Cumings traces that story, from the brutal Korean War to the present crisis. Harboring no illusions regarding the totalitarian Kim Jong Il regime, Cumings nonetheless insists on a more nuanced approach. The result is both a counter-narrative to the official U.S. and North Korean versions and a fascinating portrayal of North Korea, a country that suffers through foreign invasions, natural disasters, and its own internal contradictions, yet somehow continues to survive.

An “absorbing” account of the CIA’s 1953 coup in Iran—essential reading for anyone concerned about Iran’s role in the world today (Harper’s Magazine). In August 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated the swift overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected leader and installed Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in his place. When the 1979 Iranian Revolution deposed the shah and replaced his puppet government with a radical Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the shift reverberated throughout the Middle East and the world, casting a long, dark shadow over United States-Iran relations that extends to the present day. In this authoritative new history of the coup and its aftermath, noted Iran scholar Ervand Abrahamian uncovers little-known documents that challenge conventional interpretations and sheds new light on how the American role in the coup influenced diplomatic relations between the two countries, past and present. Drawing from the hitherto closed archives of British Petroleum, the Foreign Office, and the US State Department, as well as from Iranian memoirs and published interviews, Abrahamian’s riveting account of this key historical event will change America’s understanding of a crucial turning point in modern United States-Iranian relations. A Choice Outstanding Academic Title “Not only is this book important because of its presentation of history. It is also important because it might be predicting the future.” —Counterpunch “Subtle, lucid, and well-proportioned.” —The Spectator “A valuable corrective to previous work and an important contribution to Iranian history.” —American Historical Review

In The Real Axis of Evil, author Stephen Kaposi has utilised extensive research to provide a tough and uncompromising indictment of the US invasion of Iraq, Western imperialism, globalisation, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the Police State being created in the name of "security". He reveals clearly how the mainstream media has provided a pro-establishment coverage to convince people of the need for war and increased security measures that are intended to control their populations. He demolishes the facades of George W. Bush and Tony Blair to reveal dangerous war makers intent on controlling the world and destroying opposition to their new Empires. He shows why Iraq has descended into chaos by revealing the extraordinary level of opposition to America, not just in Iraq, but around the world. The Real Axis of Evil is the necessary perspective to the sanitised, pro-American image the mainstream media has built to deceive people of the real world situation. The Real Axis of Evil provides the truths that the government and their media allies don't want you to know, and do their best to cover up.

This combination A–Z encyclopedia and primary document collection provides an authoritative and enlightening overview of U.S. anti- and counterterrorism politics, policies, attitudes, and actions related to both foreign and domestic threats, with a special emphasis on post-9/11 events. This book provides a compelling overview of U.S. laws, policies, programs, and actions in the realms of anti- and counterterrorism, as well as comprehensive coverage of the various domestic and foreign terrorist organizations threatening America, including their leaders, ideologies, and practices. These entries are supplemented with a carefully selected collection of primary sources that track the evolution of U.S. anti- and counterterrorism policies and political debate. These documents will not only illuminate major events and turning points in America's fight against terror—both foreign and homegrown—but also help readers understand debates about the effectiveness, morality, and constitutionality of controversial policies that have either been implemented or proposed, from waterboarding to targeted assassination to indefinite incarceration at Guantánamo Bay. In addition, this resource shows how political controversies over anti- and counterterrorism strategies are spilling over into other areas of American life, from debates about privacy rights, government surveillance, and anti-Muslim actions and beliefs to arguments about whether U.S. firearms policies are a boon to terrorists.

Ends of Empire examines Asian American cultural production and its challenge to the dominant understanding of American imperialism, Cold War dynamics, and race and gender formation.Jodi Kim demonstrates the degree to which Asian American literature and film critique the record of U.S. imperial violence in Asia and provides a glimpse into the imperial and gendered racial logic of the Cold War. She unfolds this particularly entangled and enduring episode in the history of U.S. global hegemony—one that, contrary to leading interpretations of the Cold War as a simple bipolar rivalry, was significantly triangulated in Asia.The Asian American works analyzed here constitute a crucial body of what Kim reveals as transnational “Cold War compositions,” which are at once a geopolitical structuring, an ideological writing, and a cultural imagining. Arguing that these works reframe the U.S. Cold War as a project of gendered racial formation and imperialism as well as a production of knowledge, Ends of Empire offers an interdisciplinary investigation into the transnational dimensions of Asian America and its critical relationship to Cold War history.

Early work in conflict resolution and peace research focused on why wars broke out, why they persisted, and why peace agreements failed to endure. Later research has focused on what actions and circumstances have actually averted destructive escalations, stopped the perpetuation of destructive conduct, produced a relatively good conflict transformation, or resulted in an enduring and relatively equitable relationship among former adversaries. This later research, which began in the 1950s, recognizes that conflict is inevitable and is often waged in the name of rectifying injustice. Additionally, it argues that damages can be minimized and gains maximized for various stakeholders in waging and settling conflicts. This theory, which is known as the constructive conflict approach, looks at how conflicts can be waged and resolved so they are broadly beneficial rather than mutually destructive. In this book, Louis Kriesberg, one of the major figures in the school of constructive conflict, looks at major foreign conflict episodes in which the United States has been involved since the onset of the Cold War to analyze when American involvement in foreign conflicts has been relatively effective and beneficial and when it has not. In doing so he analyzes whether the US took constructive approaches to conflict and whether the approach yielded better consequences than more traditional coercive approaches. Realizing Peace helps readers interested in engaging or learning about foreign policy to better understand what has happened in past American involvement in foreign conflicts, to think freshly about better alternatives, and to act in support of more constructive strategies in the future.