Alfred W. McCoy has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is In the Shadows of the American Century.
In the Shadows of the American Century
Summary
In a completely original analysis, prizewinning historian Alfred W. McCoy explores America's rise as a world power - from the 1890s through the Cold War - and its bid to extend its hegemony deep into the 21st century through a fusion of cyberwar, space warfare, trade pacts, and military alliances. McCoy then analyzes the marquee instruments of US hegemony - covert intervention, client elites, psychological torture, and worldwide surveillance. Peeling back layers of secrecy, McCoy exposes a military and economic battle for global domination fought in the shadows, largely unknown to those outside the highest rungs of power. Can the United States extend the "American Century" or will China guide the globe for the next 100 years? McCoy devotes his final chapter to these questions, boldly laying out a series of scenarios that could lead to the end of Washington's world domination by 2030.
©2018 Alfred W. McCoy (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation
Summary
Many Americans have condemned the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used in the War on Terror as a transgression of human rights. But the United States has done almost nothing to prosecute past abuses or prevent future violations. Tracing this knotty contradiction from the 1950s to the present, historian Alfred W. McCoy probes the political and cultural dynamics that have made impunity for torture a bipartisan policy of the U.S. government. During the Cold War, McCoy argues, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency covertly funded psychological experiments designed to weaken a subject's resistance to interrogation. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the CIA revived these harsh methods, while U.S. media was flooded with seductive images that normalized torture for many Americans. Ten years later, the U.S. had failed to punish the perpetrators or the powerful who commanded them, and continued to exploit intelligence extracted under torture by surrogates from Somalia to Afghanistan. Although Washington has publicly distanced itself from torture, disturbing images from the prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are seared into human memory, doing lasting damage to America's moral authority as a world leader. The book is published by University of Wisconsin Press.
©2012 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System (P)2014 Redwood Audiobooks