Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #708136 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 268 pages

Customer Reviews

Payback
A very interesting analysis of America's true role in East Asia, and how American military and economic strategy has served to harm the interests of the people of the region. Johnson's book also provides a sharp analysis of US relations with Japan, North Korea, South Korea and China, which rejects much of the conventional wisdom, (regarding trade, nuclear programs, etc..)

Johnson goes further, arguing that the Asian economic crisis was a conflict between an Asian and an American version of capitalism, and that indeed, 'Economics has not replaced culture and history' as the key to understanding the world. Moreover, he argues that US policies in favour of capital market liberalisation and then IMF-sponsored deflation were the main forces accounting for the devastation wreaked on the region in years 1997-8.

Blowback also has valuable insights on the continued ascendance of the two driving forces of US foreign policy - the military-industrial complex and finance capital, both of which are implicated in the imperial policies pursued by the USA in Asia.

After reading this book, one can't help but wonder whether Oswald Spengler's prediction, that the decline of the West would lead it towards Caesarism and a quest for world empire, has not come true. If so, then it falls upon the three countries that have so far remained independant of US hegemony - Russia, China and India, to turn blowback, (the unintended consequences of US policies overseas) into payback for the havoc wreaked on the rest of the world by the rogue superpower.