Title: Policing America's Empire: The United States, The Philippines, and the rise of the Surveillance State
Author: Alfred W. McCoy
Description:
Armed by its first information revolution, Washington pacified the Philippines after 1898 with pervasive policing. In the sixty years since its independence, the U.S. continued to use the country as a key laboratory for counterinsurgency. But techniques bred overseas could not be contained at this remote periphery of American power. From World War I to the War on Terror, new security methods have migrated homeward to honeycomb American society with spies and surveillance.
"A stunning, exemplary, and hair-raising fusion of colonial and metropolitan histories. McCoy shows how the Philippines served as a laboratory subject for experiments in policing, intelligence, and "black-operations' that were then repatriated to shape the American domestic surveillance-state from World War I forward. This is history at its most powerful and most subversive of imperial self-hypnosis." - James C. Scott, Yale University
"In this stunning book, McCoy reveals how empire shapes the intertwined destinies of all involved in its creation. Written with deft strokes, this is an instant classic of historical writing." - Lloyd Gardner, Rutgers University
"This remarkable study provides a meticulous analysis of the novel colonial system developed by the U.S. in the Philippines after the murderous conquest, with startling implications for the shape of the modern world." - Noam Chomsky, MIT
"With breathtaking sweep of archival research. McCoy shows how repressive techniques developed in the colonial Philippines migrated back to the United States for use against people of color, aliens, and really any heterodox challenge to American power. This book proves Mark Twain's adage that you cannot have an empire abroad and a republic at home." - Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago
"This book lays the Philippine body politic on the examination table to reveal the disease that lies within - crime, clandestine policing, and political scandal." - Sheila S. Coronel, Columbia University School of Journalism
ISBN: 978-0-299-23414-0
Price: US$29.95
$29.95 