Alfred W. McCoy

I can't stress enuf how important this bk is to me. While the early edition that I refer to here focuses primarily on the US & Southeast Asia, particularly in the Vietnam War era, its extremely well-researched information is clearly applicable to explaining the covert machinations of ALL GOVERNMENTS. If you want to understand in detail how heroin is used to both control & destroy domestic populations AND 'foreign' ones AND how its production & sale is a major source of war-mongering funding, READ THIS BK.… (meer)

Took me over a week to get through about the first third of this 320-page book. That section was mostly about what McCoy calls the Iberian Age (allegedly, when Spain and Portugal ruled the world). McCoy's prose is so academic and lifeless, it was hard to follow; reminded me of Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies.

Fortunately, things picked up when he dived into the "British Imperial Era", "Washington's World Order", and "Twenty-First Century and Beyond". Because I live in the present, I was more into the latter half of the book. And I found his prediction interesting that China will be the world leader around 2030 but its time of the world stage will last only about 20 years because of Climate Change.

The other book I read by McCoy, IN THE SHADOWS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY: THE RISE AND DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY OF U.S. GLOBAL POWER, was much better. More focused and I don't remember the prose being so bone-dry.

One cool thing about TO GOVER THE GLOBE is that it reminded me of a book review I read years ago, IMPERIAL TWILIGHT: THE OPIUM WAR AND THE END OF CHINA'S LAST GOLDER AGE by Stephen R. Platt (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/books/review/stephen-r-platt-imperial-twilight.html). I reserved that book at the library.… (meer)