Gangsters of Capitalism Audiobook Libro.fm

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A groundbreaking journey tracing Americas forgotten path to global powerand how its legacies shape our world todaytold through the extraordinary life of a complicated Marine

Smedley Butler was the most celebrated warfighter of his time Bestselling books were written about him Hollywood adored him Wherever the flag went The Fighting Quaker wentserving in nearly every major overseas conflict from the Spanish War of 1898 until the eve of World War II From his first days as a 16yearold recruit at the newly seized Guantnamo Bay he blazed a path for empire helping annex the Philippines and the land for the Panama Canal leading troops in China twice and helping invade and occupy Nicaragua Puerto Rico Haiti Mexico and more Yet in retirement Butler turned into a warrior against war imperialism and big business declaring I was a racketeer for capitalism

Awardwinning author Jonathan Myerson Katz traveled across the worldfrom China to Guantnamo the mountains of Haiti to the Panama Canaland pored over the personal letters of Butler his fellow Marines and his Quaker family on Philadelphias Main Line Along the way Katz shows how the consequences of the Marines actions are still very much alive talking politics with a Sandinista commander in Nicaragua getting a martial arts lesson from a devotee of the Boxer Rebellion in China and getting cast as a POW extra in a Filipino movie about their American War Tracing a path from the first wave of US overseas expansionism to the rise of fascism in the 1930s to the crises of democracy in our own time Gangsters of Capitalism tells an urgent story about a formative era most Americans have never learned about but that the rest of the world cannot forget