The Untold History of the United States
Good Fit
- Readers seeking a critical, alternative lens on official U.S. history and unafraid of sources outside the mainstream
- Readers interested in geopolitics, empire, and the history of military interventions, especially in Latin America
- Readers who enjoy heavily documented, evidence-driven political and social commentary
Not a Fit
- Readers who prefer balanced, neutrally toned academic history and are uncomfortable with an openly argued political stance
- Readers looking for a short, breezy read — the book runs 746 pages with a dense footnote and citation apparatus
In the Foreword, the authors explain the purpose of the book and its companion documentary series: they argue that the comforting "foundational narrative" Americans are taught from childhood, built around sacrifice and exceptionalism, reflects only a small part of the story — and that this leaves Americans unable to understand how the rest of the world actually sees them.
The Introduction opens under the heading "Roots of Empire: War Is a Racket." When media magnate Henry Luce declared the twentieth century the "American Century" in 1941, Vice President Henry Wallace had proposed instead a "Century of the Common Man" — a world of science-driven prosperity that outlawed colonialism. According to the authors, the postwar world followed Luce's imperial vision, not Wallace's.
The authors document how little Americans know about their own history, citing the 2011 "Nation's Report Card" findings (only 12% of graduating high school seniors scored "proficient" in U.S. history), then trace the idea of American exceptionalism from the "city upon a hill" myth through President Barack Obama's 2009 statement, "I believe in American exceptionalism."
The Introduction closes with the story of General Smedley Butler — a two-time Medal of Honor recipient who served in Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Mexico, and China and who, after retiring, wrote a book called War Is a Racket describing himself as "a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers... a racketeer for capitalism." His list of roughly two dozen military interventions in Honduras, Cuba, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Panama between 1912 and 1933 unpacks the book's central thesis: that war has often served corporate interests.
- Every claim is backed by dozens of archival sources, historical documents, and direct quotations — the dense citation apparatus of academic history
- Uses vivid, hard-to-dismiss first-person testimony, especially General Smedley Butler's own words, to keep the argument readable and story-driven
- Structured as a companion to the documentary series of the same name — the text is enriched with visual material (photos, quoted posters)
- A clear, thesis-driven architecture: each chapter sets the "official myth" against the "real history" the authors document
A similar bottom-up alternative to the official narrative of American history
Quoted directly in the book's introduction — a short, forceful first-person account of how U.S. military interventions served corporate interests
A similarly critical take on how media and state propaganda shape the "official" version of history
While the Introduction only sets the frame, the book's main body proceeds chronologically from the Wilson-versus-Lenin standoff of World War I, through a sharp critique of World War II and the decision to drop the atomic bomb (the authors argue that sidelining Henry Wallace from the vice presidency changed the course of history), through the Cold War, Cuba, and Vietnam, up to the wars and drone strikes of the Reagan, Bush, and Obama eras.
The recurring central thesis: the military-industrial complex and corporate interests, regardless of party, have consistently shaped the "imperial" character of U.S. foreign policy — a continuity the authors argue is stronger than the differences between Democrats and Republicans.
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