Bevins makes use of recently declassified documents as well as his own extensive reporting in Indonesia, Brazil, and elsewhere to piece together the history of America's post-war anti-communist crusade, including the mass-killings which were carried out with US support and direction.

This is the book that finally made US foreign policy make sense to me. I was raised to believe in the 'rules-based world order', and this book makes the extremely compelling case that that 'order' has never really existed, merely being the euphemism applied to the violence of Neocolonialism.