Alfred W. McCoy Books

Set against the backdrop of the early twentieth century, the book explores the U.S. Army's occupation of Manila and its decade-long campaign to suppress Filipino revolutionaries. Utilizing advanced technology from the information revolution, the American colonial regime established modern police and intelligence units that effectively stifled dissent. The narrative reveals how U.S. interventions, framed as efforts to promote democracy, often resulted in the entrenchment of oppressive forces, shaping the Philippines' political landscape for decades to come.

The essential guide to how American foreign policy shaped the world and where it's left us

"History on an epic scale--sweeping, provocative, and unsparing in its judgment." --Andrew Bacevich, author of After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed An immensely readable history, To Govern the Globe narrates the rising empires and fading world orders of the last seven centuries, from the Iberian Age to the British Empire to the post-World War II American era. As historian Alfred McCoy explains, each world order has been defined by shifting principles of sovereignty, debates over human rights, and the quest for profitable forms of energy. Today as the US world order, with its voracious consumption of fossil fuels, faces mounting crises, McCoy shows how past patterns of energy use will trouble the planet for the rest of this century and beyond. This paperback edition has a new preface by the author.