Henry Heller

Henry Heller's "The Cold War and the New Imperialism" is a history of exactly what the title promises, and nothing more. Although the author is an expert on early modern French history, he has seen fit to give a left-wing historical overview of the various imperialist interventions the world has seen, militarily and economically, since WW2, mainly focusing on the American ones. This book is in essence along the same lines as the books of Zinn and similar people.

Unfortunately, that's not all too much of a recommendation. The overview itself is ok, if very superficial because Heller has chosen scope over depth in every case. It is mainly good in describing the class backgrounds of the various dictators, resistance movements, militias etc. in the Third World, which is for any radical thinker useful information to have, and as a reference book of this it works well enough. However, the book is riddled with spelling errors in the foreign names ("Schumacker", "Jaruszelski"), and the analysis is annoyingly one-sided in the typical Zinnesque manner, being very selective in what is and isn't mentioned when describing the rule of certain Presidents and the like. Sometimes this makes it sound like a conspiracy book of the leftist kind, especially when railing against the "imperialism" of the NATO attack on Milosevic and the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, despite their being no evidence of this being intended as an attack on the "remaining socialism", as Heller claims.

In fact, that is another issue with the book - nothing is sourced. The book has a big bibliography in the back, it must be admitted, but because none of the statements are referenced to any of these books, we apparently have to guess what claim comes from which book. Especially with some of the more 'juicy' statements in the book, this is annoying and counterproductive.

Still, for its intent in providing a popular overview of imperialism during and after the Cold War, it's not so bad. But unless you are really looking for something like that, I wouldn't bother.… (meer)