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The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic? Paperback – July 16, 2018

by David Ray Griffin (Author)

4.3 30 ratings

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“David Ray Griffin has done it again. His new book should be read as aprequel to the seminal Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World.Supported by extensive research, Griffin thoroughly debunks themyth of an American Empire as a benign, exceptionalist, divinelyordained historical agent. Instead of Manifest Destiny, what reality-based Griffin charters is the ‘malign’ ways of US foreign policy sincethe 19th century; a trajectory founded by slavery and genocide ofindigenous peoples and then imperially expanded, non-stop. ‘Malign’happens to be a term currently very much in vogue acrossthe Beltway—but always to designate US competitors Russia andChina. Griffin consistently challenges Beltway gospel, demonstrating that ifthe US had not entered WWI, there may have been no WWII. Heunmasks the lies surrounding the true story of the Pearl Harborattacks. He asks: If the US was really guided by God, howcould it ‘choose’ to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, knowing that ‘theatomic bombs were not necessary to end the war?’Griffin also shows how the Cold War was actually conceptualizedseveral years before the 1950 National Security Council paper 68 (NSC-68). He revisits the origins of irrational hatred of Iran; thedemonization of Cuba; the lies surrounding the Vietnam debacle; thefalse flags across Europe via Operation Gladio; the destruction ofYugoslavia; the decades-long evisceration of Iraq; and theramifications of the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.This sharp, concise history of the American Empire ultimatelydemonstrates, in Griffin’s analysis, the ‘fraud’ of endorsing self-praising American Exceptionalism. A must read.”—Pepe Escobar, Asia Times/Hong Kong

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This sharp, concise history of the American Empire ultimately demonstrates, in Griffin's analysis, the 'fraud' of endorsing self-praising American Exceptionalism. A must read.” PEPE ESCOBAR, AsiaTimes

"The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic? is essential reading to understand the true nature of the “exceptional” role of the United States in world affairs―past, present and future.”
―JOHN WHITBECK, International lawyer;
author of The World According to Whitbeck

“This new book by David Ray Griffin is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the dark side of US Imperialism in its global context.“
―Dr. DANIELE GANSER, Director, Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research;
author of NATO's Secret Armies

About the Author

David Ray Griffin is Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University (1973-2004); Co-Director, Center for Process Studies. He edited the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought (1987-2004), which published 31 volumes. He has written 30 books, edited 13 books, and authored 250 articles and chapters. His most recent books are Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World and UNPRECEDENTED: Can Humanity Survive the CO2 Crisis?

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

American imperialism is often said to have begun in 1898, when Cuba and the Philippines were the main prizes. What was new at this time, however, was only that America took control of countries beyond the North American continent. As John Bassett Moore, who had been an assistant secretary of state at that time, later wrote:

It is true that the expansion of 1898 involved . . . the taking of a step geographically in advance of any that had been taken before; but so far as concerns the acquisition of new territory we were merely following a habit which had characterized our entire national existence.

This statement is of utmost importance, because it points out that, already in 1898, imperial conquest was a long-standing habit of American policy makers. America had been engaged in expansionism from the outset.

1. The Creation of the American Empire

Maintaining that US imperialism began only in 1898 depends on an artificial distinction between “expansionism” and “imperialism,” holding that conquests are imperialistic only if a sea has been crossed. If that distinction were otherwise enforced, the Mongol Empire created by Ghengis Khan and his sons, the most extensive empire created until that time, could not be called an empire.
Historians who reject this artificial distinction date the origin of America's empire much earlier. For example, in his important book The Rising American Empire, Richard Van Alstyne reported that “before the middle of the eighteenth century, the concept of an empire that would take in the whole continent was fully formed.” The War for Independence, he added, was fought “under the spell of [the] imperial idea . . . that the continent of North America belonged, as of right, to the people of the thirteen colonies.”
The right referred to here was a divine right. One way of expressing this sense of divine authorization was to call America the “new Israel.” But the phrase that really caught on was “manifest destiny,” which John O'Sullivan, urging the annexation of Texas, coined in 1845 to signify the mission of the United States “to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
One problem with this assessment of the divine will, of course, was that “our” millions encountered the millions of people who were already here.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Clarity Press, Inc. (July 16, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 410 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0998694797
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0998694795
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.03 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,848,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #849 in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History (Books)
- #3,012 in World War I History (Books)
- #3,334 in Vietnam War History (Books)

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4.3 30 ratings

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Customers find the book informative and interesting. They appreciate the author's coverage of history, including World War I and 9/11. The book is readable, though some issues with the kindle edition need to be resolved.

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Customers find the book packed with information and interesting perspectives. They say it covers the entire history of wars and lies, including 9/11. The book is well-written and thoroughly researched.

"...The entire history of America, from the genocide of the native Americans through the colonial seizing of California and Texas, Hawaii and the..." Read more

"I loved how the author went through the entire history of wars and lies, however he passes by 9/11 saying "some think the govt stood down" not..." Read more

"...for pecuniary reasons - but this is already a big book, packed with information...." Read more

"...over the past roughly 50 years, is a well-written and thoroughly researched volume that ties back into the arc of scholarship he was pursuing that..." Read more

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Customers find the book readable. However, some reviewers mention issues with the Kindle edition.

"...effect that power can have on human values, Griffin’s book is a superb, must-read book." Read more

"...This book is must reading." Read more

"This is a great book, but the kindle edition needs to be fixed...." Read more

"An Exceptional Book about the Destructiveness of American Exceptionalism..." Read more

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Martin Hanson
A powerful antidote to nationalistic narcissism and hypocrisy
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2018
Verified Purchase
“The United States of America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. So said Martin Luther King, shortly before his assassination in 1986.
In stark contrast, we have the view expressed by Dick and Liz Cheney in their book Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, in which they boasted: “We have guaranteed freedom, security, and peace for a larger share of humanity than has any other nation in all of history . . . We are, as a matter of empirical fact and undeniable history, the greatest force for good the world has ever known.”
The Cheneys’ book was a New York Times bestseller, and 86 percent of the ratings on Amazon were 4 or 5 stars, suggesting that such delusory self-congratulation is not limited to neoconservatives like the Cheneys but is the norm across swathes of Republican America.
It is to such nationalistic narcissism that David Ray Griffin takes his latest scalpel in his book The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic?
There is only one word to describe the book: superb. It is THE book that should be read by every American and indeed, every English-speaking citizen of the world. With merciless detail and exhaustively documented evidence, Griffin shows that the Cheney view of America is the precise opposite of reality. The entire history of America, from the genocide of the native Americans through the colonial seizing of California and Texas, Hawaii and the Philippines, to the near global empire it now rules, America is everything Martin Luther King said, and much, much, more.
In reading the book I was reminded of Genghis Khan, whose empire was built on the threat of ‘submit or be destroyed’; any country that wished to remain independent of corporate domination was regarded by John Foster Dulles, President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, as ‘communist’, and therefore an enemy.
I will not repeat the voluminous examples given by previous reviewers of the evil and rapacity perpetrated by America and its breathtaking hypocrisy. If allowed, I would give 4.99 stars for Griffin’s book, the only question mark being due to his apparent use of Noam Chomsky as a source of information on President Kennedy’s views on Vietnam. Two widely respected books, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters by James Douglass, and The Devil’s Chessboard by David Talbot, make it clear that Kennedy’s policy on Vietnam was far from a continuation of the Eisenhower’s, and that he wanted to get America out of Vietnam. So one is bound to wonder about Chomsky, who is on record as expressing uncritical acceptance of the official explanations for the two most seismic events in recent American history: the assassination of President Kennedy and the events of 9/11, despite overwhelming evidence and public disbelief to the contrary in each case. In both events, suspicion has been thrown on agencies other than the official perpetrators, so one is bound to ask why Chomsky might wish to deflect attention from real ones, and whether the latter is the same in both cases.
That said, America is clearly suffering from a pathological illusion that ‘Might is Right’, to quote the title of an 1890 book by pseudonymous author ‘Ragnar Redbeard’, and which seems to articulate much of America’s underlying morality. As an antidote to the corrupting and poisonous effect that power can have on human values, Griffin’s book is a superb, must-read book.

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Keith
Great source collection, poor interpritation
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2019
Verified Purchase
I loved how the author went through the entire history of wars and lies, however he passes by 9/11 saying "some think the govt stood down" not mentioning he wrote two 9/11 truth books. Also blames "the right" and indirectly makes the case for world government, so bad job on the problem & solution, however great history in all.

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Gary A. Bollinger
Exposing The Malevolence - U.S. Empire Through History
Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
It is natural to feel an affinity with the communities that contribute to who one is and to feel urged to promote these communities. It is also natural and too likely that because they are in some sense "ours", we may deny (not see) the wrong that our communities may do and the deceptions that our leaders exploit. We then need a prophetic judgment on our own self-deceptions and complicities.

In "The American Trajectory", David Griffin provides such a judgment by relentlessly demonstrating that U.S. foreign policy has been (and continues to be) more malevolent than benevolent, more demonic than divine. This judgment is hard for Americans to embrace. President George W. Bush once remarked, "I'm amazed that there is such misunderstanding of what our country is about, that people would hate us. I am, I am—like most Americans, I just can't believe it, because I know how good we are ...". Just this August N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo felt the pain of questioning, however obliquely, this American self-understanding when he asserted, "America was never that great". As CNN, ABC News, Fox News, and the Washington Post put it, he thereby "shocked the crowd" that heard him.

The central issue in "The American Trajectory" is whether the historical evidence supports the belief in American exceptionalism or contradicts it. Griffin painstakingly documents his judgment that it is contradicted. He starts with the European settlement of America and the attempted extermination of native Americans, the U.S. breaking treaty after treaty. From there he exposes U.S. motives and actions in every major U.S. war: the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the everlasting U.S. Global War on Terror, the U.S./Iraq War (2003-2011) and the U.S./Afghanistan War (2001 - continuing). Along the way, he describes the U.S. instigated regime changes worldwide, generally removing democracies in favor of dictatorships, as well as smaller invasions like those in Panama and Haiti. A chapter is dedicated to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A similar judgment could, of course, be expanded beyond U.S. foreign policy to include the current U.S. commitment to the war on nature (growth fueled climate change and climate change denial) as well as the role of U.S. economic elites in promoting such violence for pecuniary reasons - but this is already a big book, packed with information. Besides, Griffin masterfully addresses such issues in other books (e.g., "Unprecedented"). Buy this one too.

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Mike De Freitas
The Mostly Demonic Trajectory...
Reviewed in Canada on August 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
Even if America can be appreciated for many positive things (its mostly unhindered intellectual life, etc), from the perspective of the 2nd and 3rd world i.e. non-1st worlders, America is very clearly a largely demonic enterprise of elitist dualists who evidently conspire with one another for the purpose of empire - more or less treating individual human lives (not relevant to the goals of these elites) as nothing more than grist in the saw mill of empire building; of course, although the author doesn't say so, one gets a whiff of the idea of "the end justifies the means" for these elites.

The author goes through example after example of official American government mendacity - with false flags serving the interests of entering wars (WWI and WWII), causing wars (Spanish American War) and with leaders conspiring with other leaders for no other purpose to advance whatever the agenda happens to be, whether it Woodrow Wilson with Churchhill, or JFKs antics at the bay of pigs, gulf on tonkin, Clintons activity during the Balkan war and the promotion of sanctions that caused genocide, or Obamas massive escalation of extra-judicial assassinations with his drone program; who can come away with any feeling other than a picture where there is one official ideology: empire, with two different modes: conservatives move two steps, whereas liberals move one step 'back', while clandestinely maintaining many of the fundamental programs set up by conservatives.

To quote Aldous Huxley: “The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.” This point cannot be emphasized enough, yet with chronic dualists - people obsessed with subterfuge and intrigue, and an ideal of 'heroism', reality is just boring unless bombs are being dropped on innocent people, weapons are being perfected and made more deadly, extensive, and stealthy. This is basically the picture the David Ray Griffin sets up for the observant reader: of a trajectory that has a deadly and demonic end - whether that be a world police state, or the destruction of civilization, the powers-that-currently-be seem to have no interest in changing course.

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