About this item
The United States has been fighting wars constantly since invading Afghanistan in 2001. This nonstop warfare is far less exceptional than it might seem: the United States has been at war or has invaded other countries almost every year since independence. In The United States of War, David Vine traces this pattern of bloody conflict from Columbus's 1494 arrival in Guantanamo Bay through the 250-year expansion of a global US empire. Drawing on historical and firsthand anthropological research in fourteen countries and territories, The United States of War demonstrates how US leaders across generations have locked the United States in a self-perpetuating system of permanent war by constructing the world's largest-ever collection of foreign military bases - a global matrix that has made offensive interventionist wars more likely.
About the Author
David Vine is Professor of political anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. David's newest book, "The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State," just launched with the University of California Press. "The United States of War" is the third in a trilogy of books about U.S. wars and struggles to make the United States and the world less violent and more peaceful. The other books in the trilogy are "Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia" and "Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World." David's other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Politico, Mother Jones, Boston Globe, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. With the Network for Concerned Anthropologists, David has helped write and compile two books: "The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society" and "Militarization: A Reader." David is honored to be a board member of the Costs of War Project and a co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition (OBRACC) . He is a contributor to TomDispatch.com and Foreign Policy in Focus. As a believer in the importance of public education systems (apologies to American University) , David is proud to have received his PhD and MA degrees from the City University of New York's Graduate Center. There, David developed an approach to a holistic anthropology that attempts to combine the best of anthropology, history, political science, economics, sociology, and psychology. All royalties from David's books and all speaker honoraria are donated to the exiled Chagossian people and to non-profit organizations serving veterans and other victims of war. David feels at home in many places but has lived for much of his life in New York City, Oakland, and the Washington, DC area, where he was briefly a dancing waiter. See davidvine.net and basenation.us for more information.
