Maleri Darren Cullen
It took ages but I’ve finally finished this map of US empire (link to larger version), charting US military and CIA/US government foreign interventions since 1900 (excluding WWI & WWII), as well as US military bases and CIA torture black sites.
You can order a limited edition print from my website shop. I’m doing them up to A1 in size which looks incredible (if I say so myself.)
The map was inspired by this 1886 map of the British Empire (right) while the information comes from various sources but an incredibly useful source was William Blum’s brilliant book Killing Hope, which I highly recommend (the much shorter The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins is also very good). I’ve made a work-in-progress spreadsheet listing information and links about all the interventions which you can find on my website here.
I had to leave out a lot of nefarious stuff or else it would never have been finished. From CIA assassinations that were not part of a coup, US-backed death squad massacres, to US government threats, sanctions and other forms of political pressure that have bent other nations to America’s imperial will.
For kids growing up in the 80s and 90s we got sold a glittering story about the USA’s belief in freedom and democracy, when in actual fact the real story of US power in the post-colonial period has been a fiercely anti-democratic, authoritarian nightmare, that has killed tens of millions of people, ravaged continents and, like other empires before it, left nations permanently destabilised, economies wrecked and environments devastated.
For decades I understood the story of the Cold War to be an ideological battle between capitalism and communism, but now I see it as a battle between newly independent ex-colonies and a burgeoning new empire that was determined to have access and control over their resources and markets, or else it would overthrow, invade and massacre anyone who got in their way. The USA’s violence was not just against communists, but anyone who stood up for the rights of workers or the rights of nations to control their own natural resources. The friends of US Empire meanwhile, have consistently been neo-fascist dictators, terrorists and far-right death squads.
Order a print here!
