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Summary: christ
Review: filled with unstructured rambling, conspiratorial musings, and cherry-picked historical anecdotes to support a conclusion he pulled out of his ass. i was forced to read this rag in my international relations class. johnson is only a few centimeters above moore in his policy analysis yet my professor insisted he was a moderate. anyone who takes a logic class understands the danger of careless language use in attempting to form a cogent argument. all empires fall, america is an empire, america will fall. sorry, but the fact that, like other developing nations, we have military bases abroad plus the annexation of hawaii does not parallel america to the roman empire or even european colonialism.
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Summary: That Forbidden Word: Empire
Review: For practical purposes the eastern Pacific is an American lake, yet how many readers understand the role an obscure island like Okinawa plays in keeping it so. I didn't. But I do now, thanks to Johnson's valuable little book. Yes, the work's title is misleading; it needs a qualifier like Blowback in East Asia to be more accurate. Nonetheless, the chapters on Japan, and Meltdown, respectively, are little gems. Everyone knows that Japan sells alot to the US, but buys little in return. It doesn't seem fair. Their workers are employed, while ours increasingly aren't, and those who are need food stamps to survive. So should we blame them for taking away good American jobs. Not if Johnson is correct. The primary locus lies in Washington and Wall Street, not in Tokyo, Seoul or Jakarta. Simply put, it's the economics of empire that's to blame, although the term "empire" is never used in polite discourse, nor for that matter does Johnson bother to define it. But, regardless of what the network is called, reality is reality, and problems of imperial maintenance do arise, even for the experienced managers of Washington DC.The challenge lies in strong but dependent economies, like Japan's and South Korea's, who have evolved their own competing form of capitalism, yet still need markets to survive. Hence, to keep dependent Asian economies dependent and their subordinate polities subordinate, markets must be regulated and upstarts punished. The chief tools in this regard are trade policy and capital flows, topics about which the American electorate thankfully knows little. If using these for reasons of empire requires undercutting America's own manufacturing sector and the good wages that go with it, then that's the price of remaining Number One. How long the imperium can continue the juggling act, however, remains to be seen. Not every chapter is the equal of Japan, or Meltdown. The chapter on North Korea is very helpful for understanding the current standoff. The two on China are informative, but have little to do with blowback or empire, while the one on stealth imperialism is sub-Noam Chomsky. Moreover, the final chapter, which should be strong in summation, has little substance beyond the mildly speculative. On the other hand, prologues are often little more than bland introductions. This one however isn't. Johnson's prologue outlines in brief but telling detail a personal journey from empire's unwitting spear-carrier to that of clear-eyed critic. In its own way, it's a rather inspiring odyssey. One can only hope that increasing numbers of Americans make the same journey, because, unfortunately, empires are neither peaceable nor democratic, and rarely if ever self-liquidate.
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Summary: I wonder if gkjy read the book gkjy???
Review: gkjy, When you write "The central thesis is that the US aided Afghan Mujahadeen who then turned on the US" it makes me wonder if you read the book. There are things interesting about what happened in other parts of the world like Central America, Indonesia... Maybe you should try to have a copy of the first edition which was published in 2000? I have read the first 3 chapters and I like what I have read. It's more a case of explaining than blaming. Period!
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Summary: disheartened
Review: I came to Blowback by way of a year-long research project on globalization. Over the past year I have read dozens of books, both scholary and popular, on this topic. Right - Left - Love America - Hate America - Multi-Cultural - Eurocentric; I've suffered through them all ( happily, there is as yet no feminist perspective on the subject ).
First let me state that Chalmers Johnson, this regrettable book notwithstanding, is not by profession the village diot. Johnson is a highly respected economic and political analyst, a man who used to be worth listening to.
What happened? How did he come to cobble together this breathtakingly unanalytical smorgasborg? Where did the imperialist conspiracy rant come from? Johnson, where did you go?
Well, the easy answer is that he delves into complex areas of which he has no knowledge. His take on America's military policies is ludicrous. Anyone who questions why the U.S. Army is still in Korea after 50+ years need only point to Seoul on a map and drag his finger a couple of inches north, where he will discover NORTH KOREA. Of coures once an idealogue veers into unknown territory there is no other path left for him than that of conspiracy. Conspiracy "theory" is all fine and good for the lazy and uneducated; it's their sanctuary; but for a scholar of Johnson's caliber to go there is incomprehensible. Unti you see what I saw.
The professional works that I read on globalization were pretty much uniform in that they addressed one or another facet of free-trade and concluded more-or-less-nothing, all in scholarly language. For the most part the popular books were not nominally about globalization at all, although globalization was the only thread holding the books together, and to each other. Brushing aside the fact that most of the authors of the popular group are ageing oddballs from the 60s ( you underestimate the mustard-gas-like effect of that era at your peril ),the only possible reason for these immensely angry, nonsensical books is this: no one fully understands globalization. No one. Even when you define the thing narrowly it is a cantankerous beast, too young to tame; growing unpredictably every day like the Blob. They're frustrated, these authors. I can't blame them, but for some reason they must have a scapegoat and the've rounded up the usual suspect, America, as in why does America impose - dominate - ignore, etc. the third world? Silly question, really. You're at the top of the food chain, what do they expect you to do? When bad things happen you want to be sure they happen to someone else.
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Summary: the horrible consequences of empire for Asia
Review: I'm of two minds about Chalmers Johnson's Blowback. On the one hand, it's probably the best critical introduction to US foreign policy in Asia. On the other hand, Johnson too often chooses polemics over nuance and has a somewhat confused approach to imperialism and what to do about it. The first thing to know is that both the title and subtitle are misleading. This is a book almost exclusively about US imperialism in East and Southeast Asia. It rarely explores other regions or what's usually termed blowback. What Johnson does do is much more valuable - he explains America's military and economic policies toward Asia without getting stuck in the stultifying prose of security experts or the bewildering technical jargon of economists. It's not a pretty picture. We see the destructive legacy of American bases in Okinawa and elsewhere, the US complicity in the South Korean military's atrocities on Cheju (after World War II) and Kwangju (1980), the US arming and training of Indonesia's death squad military, the relentless push for a militarized Asia by the American military-industrial complex, and the horrible consequences of American economic priorities. We also learn a good deal about the recent history and politics of the region's major states. Johnson's strength is in recounting the specificities of US foreign policy; he's much weaker at an overall understanding of imperialism. He seems to think that American policymakers have naively built up the economic strength of their Japanese, Korean, and now Chinese competitors by focusing on maintaining their own military power. This is an old critique, resting on the notion that imperialism hurts the imperialists. But Johnson is relying on the idea that "America" is a unitary entity, so that the hollowing out of industry hurts "America", not specific social groups within the country. In reality, US foreign policymakers work to advance the interests not of "America", but of those same business elites that have benefited from turning Asia into the world's sweatshop and undermining the unions that built their strength on American industry. American economic imperialism is not a failed conspiracy against the people of Asia, but an alliance between American elites and their Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, and Chinese counterparts - against the potential power of the working majority in all those countries. But it's more complex than that, too, since the US seeks to prevent the emergence of an independent military challenge (especially China, but also Japan) to its Asia hegemony while seeking to expand the power of American commercial interests in the region, even as it tries to keep Asian elites happy enough with the status quo to prevent their rebellion against it. In other words, the US system in Asia is more complicated than Johnson conveys, and defending America's mythical "national interests" will never address its fundamental injustices. While Johnson seems to have abundant sympathy for the people of Asia, his nationalist framework prevents his from proposing the only real challenge to American hegemony: a popular anti-imperialist movement that crosses the barriers of nation-states.
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Summary: Essential Foreign Policy Reading.
Review: If you think that the motivation for the 9/11 attacks might be a little more complicated than 'they hate our freedom'. Then this book is for you.
It is a tour de force of research and well reasoned argument. With a voice of decades of experience; Chalmers Johnson presents a very plausible case of Imperial hubris and overstretch to the reader.
Hegemony is ugly no matter how you dress it up, and you will be suprised, shocked and perhaps embarrased by the things America has done to shore up its position in the world.
Read it, and pass it along. Soon.
Rating: 
Summary: overdone
Review: Johnson has a good thesis -- there are consequences to foreign policy aims and the varying means by which those aims may be pursued. The problem is with his supporting arguments. Far too much of what he trots out to support his central thesis is very questionable factually, pure nonsense, or old canards. There is plenty of evidence out there to support his thesis. Relying on very questionable "evidence" severely diminishes his central argument. The book is not worth reading.
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Summary: Interesting incite into American foreign policy in Asia
Review: Johnson has a wealth of understanding of the politics in East Asia and couples that with study of American foreign policy. It makes interesting reading, highlighting the militaristic, short-sighted and hypocritical foreign policies of successive US governments. Unfortunately it is rather an apologist view of the US imperialist policies, particularly opposed to military interventions and control of foreign policy abroad. Johnson's views are a keen and needed reposte to current US foreign policy, suggesting (rightly) that covert operations and insensitive military colonialisation resulted in blowbacks (the worst of which is 9/11), Johnson's view is almost definitely opposed to war and against 'colonial' defense policies set-up as deterants to aggression. However, if one thing is missing from Johnson's work it's a balanced approach towards appreciating the benefits of the US remaining at the sharp end of military advances, rather than discounting such efforts as counter-productive. All said and done, Johnson writes well and informatively on complex issues, though somewhat debateable, that should provide the reader with some interesting questions about the role of the world's leading super power.
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Summary: Blowback
Review: Johnson rightly examines the unintentioned effects of American foreign policy. Keeping in mind that this book was originally written pre-9/11, his observations concerning Osama Bin-Laden are eerie. The book causes the reader to wonder what will be the consequences (blowback) of Bush's current foreign policy and war in Iraq.
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Summary: Excellent!!
Review: Some people may rant and rave about this and that aspect of this book, but it is really a fine piece of scholarship. The whole point of this book is East Asia and America practice capitalism very differently. America has, due to the Cold War, persued a military course of action. Now that the Cold War has ended, America is having a difficult time shifting. During the Cold War America bullied, cajolled, pushed, and manouvered Asian countries to follow a certain course. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, America is now trying to shove its version of Capitalism down the throats of various Asian nations and in the process causing tremendous financial strains in Asia and fostering deep resentment there. This anger by many Asian nations could develop into some kind of revolt against America in the future. Hence America's short term policy of today may cause a "blowback" that will come back to bite America in the future. Mr. Johnson challenges conventional thinking. He calls America an empire and after reading his well reasoned book, I agree. America is having a hard time shifting from its last 50 year role as the chief Cold Warrior to a more equal partner with Asia. It has difficulty in understanding that different peoples and cultures do business differently. America sometimes behaves like a bull in a china shop. My only critism of BLOWBACK is his conclusion early on in the book of who caused the Pan Am flight to be blown up over Scotland. Ignoring that, the book gets better and better the further you read. If you want a quick education about Asia and how it operates in business and how the U.S. responds, read this book.
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