Austin Brasel

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the History of the United States and how they established themselves as a world power during the 1900s. The bias of this book leans toward the revisionist side of history but balances toward actual historical fact instead of a Marxist view of history as seen in other works of American History (A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn).

The stories told throughout the book span from 1850 to post-World War II decolonization efforts and are backed by verifiable facts. Sometimes, our understanding of history needs revision due to skewed perspectives. Immerwahr does an outstanding job in conveying this throughout his telling of American Imperialism.

This book, as should be obvious by its financer, shows unabashed bias purely for the justification for the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Japan in the waning days of World War II. Sandwiched in the middle of its storytelling of Japanese Atrocities, the book spends very little time reflecting on the actual horrors of the A-bomb upon Japan. The agenda of the book is trying to pin all of the blame onto Japan thanks to their actions during the war.

The overt nature of this book is politically motivated, which makes it more of a story meant to appeal to its readers of horrors that prove the A-bomb was a good idea, instead of telling the history of how/why it was dropped. However, when the book does get around to telling the history of the A-bomb development and the dropping of the said bomb, the historical accuracy is on point.