From 1932 until his death in 1990, Hal Draper was a prolific Marxist writer and socialist organizer who successfully combined rigorous research and passionate outrage to assess his political era. In this still-indispensable collection of essays written in the 1950s and 60s, Draper grapples with the role of the United States in the world, situating post-war American imperialism in a global picture of capitalist competition and expansion. The essays in this volume include Draper’s discussions of the United States' involvement in Guatemala, Guam, Samoa, Cuba, Vietnam, and elsewhere, as well as his, more general, socialist guide to national liberation movements.
The late Hal Draper is the author of the five-volume study of Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution as well as War and Revolution: Lenin and the Myth of Revolutionary Defeatism and Berkeley: The New Student Revolt. He was also a prominent socialist journalist and editor of the journal Labor Action from 1948-1958.
Publication date: February 7, 2023
Introduction by Samuel Farber
Publisher’s Note
1. Beyond Yalta: The Truth About the Second World War
2. America as Arbiter: An Essay in Historical Perspective
3. The Case of Guatemala
4. America’s Colonies – Okinawa, Samoa, Guam
5. The Crime of Okinawa: American Bulldozers at Work on the “Cyprus of the Pacific”
6. Guam: Island on Your Conscience
7. Who Cares About Samoa?
8. Kennedy’s Disastrous Cuban Policy
9. The Revolutionary Potential in Vietnam
10. The ABC of National Liberation: A Political Guide
“[Hal Draper is] the embodiment of what a Marxist scholar should be...a political practitioner of the first order...Draper’s approach is today very useful in understanding and reaching political conclusions based on a democratic and revolutionary socialist perspective regarding such diverse places and conflicts as Syria, Hong Kong, Iran, and especially Ukraine.” —Samuel Farber, from the Foreword
