Play Audiobook Sample
American Exception: Empire and the Deep State Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(0.00) - 0 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
American Exception seeks to explain the breakdown of US democracy, to understand the uncanny continuity of American foreign policy, the breakdown of the rule of law, and the extreme concentration of wealth and power into an overworld of the corporate rich.
To trace the evolution of the American state, Aaron Good takes a deep-politics approach. The term “deep state” was badly misappropriated during the Trump era. In the simplest sense, it here refers to all those institutions that collectively exercise undemocratic power over state and society. To trace how we arrived at this point, American Exception explores various deep state institutions and history-making interventions.
Key institutions involve the relationships between the overworld of the corporate rich, the underworld of organized crime, and the national security actors that mediate between them. History-making interventions include the toppling of foreign governments, the launching of aggressive wars, and the political assassinations of the 1960s.
In its long history before World War II, the United States had a deep political system, a system of governance in which decision-making and enforcement were carried out within—and outside of—public institutions. It was a system that always included some degree of secretive collusion and law-breaking. After World War II, US elites decided to pursue global dominance over the international capitalist system.
Setting aside the liberal rhetoric, this project was pursued in a manner that was by and large imperialistic rather than progressive. To administer this covert empire, US elites created a massive national security state characterized by unprecedented levels of secrecy and lawlessness. The “Global Communist Conspiracy” provided a pretext for exceptionism—an endless “exception” to the rule of law.
What gradually emerged after World War II was a tripartite state system of governance. The open democratic state and the authoritarian security state were both increasingly dominated by an American deep state.
Aaron Good concludes by assessing the prospects for a revival of US democracy.
Download and start listening now!
“Bring[s] out lucid insights into the American Empire—and the reasons for its behavior. This work again reminds us of the pernicious impact of intelligence and security forces and their role in undermining our integrity as a country.”
— Oliver Stone, author and Academy Award–winning director, producer, and screenwriter
Quotes
-
“A work that brilliantly illuminates the deep political forces that have animated the American empire throughout its volatile, troubled, and often violent history.”
— Peter Kuznick, professor of history and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University -
“He surveys facts, normally suppressed, about the increased role of criminality in political activity…An unparalleled synthesis of the emerging new critical perspective on American hegemony.”
— Peter Dale Scott, author and professor emeritus, University of California-Berkley -
“Excavating the hidden faces of power within the American state…A grim but necessary recounting of how financial and security interests shaped US foreign policy at every turn across the past half-century.”
— Sean Yom, associate professor of political science, Temple University, and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute
American Exception Listener Reviews
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
About Aaron Good
Aaron Good has a PhD in political science from Temple University. His dissertation, “American Exception: Hegemony and the Tripartite State,” examined the state, elite criminality, and US hegemony. Prior to completing his doctorate, he worked on the 2008 Obama campaign in Missouri. Born and raised in Indiana, he has since lived and worked in Taiwan and Shanghai and resides in the greater Philadelphia area where he has been a history and social-science instructor.
About Arthur Morey
Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.