Customer Reviews

Trading With the Enemy

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a book that gives you insight into some of America's
corporation that actually traded with the Nazis during World War II.You are given actual names of some powers in American industry
who did business with Nazi Germany during the war. Some of the biggest corporations in the Unites States profited due to "Trading With The Enemy".Some of the companies that are named in this book are still in operation today.This is a good history
book that serves as an exposure of American business. This is
definitely a very good read. It might change your outlook on
American history.

Excruciatingly detailed account of the ugly business of war. Frightening and meticulously researched, this book is not easy reading. I found it somewhat dull because of the writing style, but for those interested in WW2 or for those who lived through I would still recommend it.

This book contains an important lesson for our times: quick profits and national security are sometimes compatible and sometimes conflicting objectives, and it is not always easy to determine which they may be at a given time -- though, viewed though the absolutist viewpoint through which US participation in WWII is now generally recalled, the actions and behavior outlined in this book strike one as genteel treason by respectable people and companies which was apparently accommodated by the government, with one shocking expose following another. It is instructive even as there have been inquiries on who armed Iraq -- and as there is an ongoing national security debate on technology export policy -- to note that US trade with the Axis was not completely cut off even after Pearl Harbor. For those who might be inclined to think that it is obvious that there are some things the US would never sell to certain other countries so as not to arm its potential enemies, they should think again; there have been too many situations where the "obvious" has been turned on its head. The book imparts a crucial and not widely understood civics lesson, especially in using the US's "good war" as a paradigm.

A necessary companion to "Gravity's Rainbow", this is the historical truth behind Pynchon's farce. The same companies that brought us the Allende assasination and Southeast Asian heroin, are here seen trading oil, munitions, and intelligence on behalf of the alleged enemy, World Fascism. The links between these Amerikan Nazis and the origins of McCarthyism, the CIA, and the Cold War are especially instructive. If you like this book, try the easier to find "The Politics of Heroin", Alfred McCoy.

In any newsreport from any war-era to anyplace of wartorn politics, with any research - United States is also a global business entity and that even includes financial aid, military aid, survival aid, technical support. And all of this at times gets thrown back at us. As by war, economic balance etc.Even with lives lost and property lost.Trading with the Enemy is exactly that during the Nazi era and US (copperations, companies, financial organizations, megamoney people) directly or indirectly supported the Nazis. This does get into account of who and what did. Truth is 'wilder' than fiction!

Anyone following current news should read this book. Most Americans are not aware of the technology we peddle overseas that gets shot back at us. This book reveals that there is some history of doing this.

History of the traitors among us, whose families are the movers & shakers today. Still traitors and still trading with our enemies. They ARE the enemy!

The book makes radical claims but does not have a single source referenced throughout 220+ pages of its text to substantiate its allegations.

It does include an appendix with the list of books and documents that the author allegedly used, however there are no references to these sources from the main text to support author's statements, and the document list is not accompanied by archival case numbers. Some of the documents, for example, are listed as "FBI Reports, Various, 1942".

Overall, the book appears to be of the genre generally described as "folk history".

Tellingly, search in JSTOR database does not find a single academic review of the book. As a matter of fact, there are only two references to the book at all -- one in a theoretical article unconcerned with particulars of real history, another in an article published by Canadian labor history magazine.

This book takes liberties with it's sources and attempts to take half-truths and spin innuendo on top them to provide another urban myth. The factual inaccuracy is breath-taking and the book is highly selective in reporting/spinning certain events. It is safe to assume that the author would find himself in court if some of the individuals mentioned in the book were alive today.

It is hard to believe that so many individuals and companies could have been so treasonous at the time our service personnel were laying their very lives on the line to protect their investments, reputations, and the world from the likes of Hitler.