The Myth of American Idealism: How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World is Chomsky’s latest book and, given his advanced age, probably his last. Coauthored with Nathan Robinson, the prolific editor of the left-wing magazine Current Affairs, it contains all of Chomsky’s hallmarks. Written in a direct, no-nonsense style, full of shrewd analysis and layered with potent details, it is an excellent summary—and condemnation—of how the United States has shaped the world since it became a global superpower after World War II. Like almost all of Chomsky’s books, it fulfills the intellectual’s responsibility to speak the truth and to expose lies—including what Chomsky considers the biggest falsehood of them all: Americans’ naïve belief that their country is “committed to promoting democracy and human rights” around the world. This is the “myth of American idealism” referenced in the book’s title, and it is a myth that Chomsky and Robinson dismantle piece by piece.
The case that Chomsky and Robinson lay out is difficult to deny, if familiar to those aware of the ignominious history of US foreign relations since 1945. The book presents a horrifying chronology: our 1947 intervention in Greece to suppress a popular communist uprising; our subversion of Italy’s 1948 election; our repression of democratic and left-wing groups in postwar Japan and South Korea; our participation in the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s Mohammed Mossadegh, the 1954 overthrow of Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz, and the 1961 assassination of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba; our many failed attempts to murder or overthrow Cuba’s Fidel Castro; our participation in the annihilation of Indonesian communists and fellow travelers; our destruction of North and South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos; our involvement in the 1973 overthrow of Chile’s Salvador Allende; our provision of aid to Guatemala as its government prosecuted a genocide; and so on, down to the present day.
After finishing The Myth of American Idealism, no honest reader could possibly deny that the United States has been involved in some of the worst crimes of the 20th and 21st centuries and is directly and indirectly responsible for the death and dispossession of tens of millions of people. The truth is obvious for those with eyes to see: Since its rise to global power in the 1940s, the United States has not been a benevolent hegemon. Rather, and like the many empires that preceded it, the American Empire is a cruel one that resorts to violence and subterfuge whenever we Americans deem it necessary. And we do deem it necessary. A lot.