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Following the US's bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the
scenes of chaos at Kabul Airport, we could be forgiven for thinking
we're experiencing an 'end of empire' moment, that the US is
entering a new, less belligerent era in its foreign policy, and
that its tenure as self-appointed 'global policeman' is coming to
an end. Before we get our hopes up though, it's wise to remember
exactly what this policeman has done, for the world, and ask
whether it's likely to change its behaviour after any one setback.
After 75 years of war, occupation, and political interference -
installing dictators, undermining local political movements,
torturing enemies, and assisting in the arrest of opposition
leaders (from OEcalan to Mandela) - the US military-industrial
complex doesn't seem to know how to stop. This anthology explores
the human cost of these many interventions onto foreign soil, with
stories by writers from that soil - covering everything from
torture in Abu Ghraib, to coups and counterrevolutionary wars in
Latin America, to all-out invasions in the Middle and Far East.
Alongside testimonies from expert historians and ground-breaking
journalists, these stories present a history that too many of us in
the West simply pretend never happened. This new anthology
re-examines this history with stories that explore the human cost
of these interventions on foreign soil, by writers from that soil.
From nuclear testing in the Pacific, to human testing of CIA
torture tactics, from coups in Latin America, to all-out invasions
in the Middle and Far East; the atrocities that follow are often
dismissed in history books as inevitable in the 'fog of war'. By
presenting them from indigenous, grassroots perspectives,
accompanied by afterwords by the historians that consulted on them,
this book attempts to bring some clarity back to that history.
A city of stories - short, fragmented, amorphous, and at times
contradictory - Tehran is an impossible tale to tell. For the
capital city of one of the most powerful nations in the Middle
East, its literary output is rarely acknowledged in the West. This
unique celebration of its writing brings together ten stories
exploring the tensions and pressures that make the city what it is:
tensions between the public and the private, pressures from without
- judgemental neighbours, the expectations of religion and society
- and from within - family feuds, thwarted ambitions, destructive
relationships. The psychological impact of these pressures
manifests in different ways: a man wakes up to find a stranger
relaxing in his living room and starts to wonder if this is his
house at all; a struggling writer decides only when his girlfriend
breaks his heart will his work have depth... In all cases, coping
with these pressures leads us, the readers, into an unexpected
trove of cultural treasures - like the burglar, in one story,
descending into the basement of a mysterious antique collector's
house - treasures of which we, in the West, are almost wholly
ignorant.
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