The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic?
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In The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic? David Ray Griffin traces the trajectory of the American empire from its founding through to the end of the twentieth century. A prequel to GriffinтАЩs Bush and Cheney, this book demonstrates with many examples the falsity of the claim for American exceptionalism, a secular version of the old idea that America has been divinely founded and guided.
The introduction illustrates the claims for divine providence and American exceptionalism from George Washington to the book Exceptional by Dick and Liz Cheney. After pointing out that the idea that America is an empire is no longer controversial, it then contrasts those who consider it benign with those who consider it malign. The remainder of the book supports the latter point of view.
The American Trajectory contains episodes that many readers will find surprising:
The sinking of the Lusitania was anticipated, both by Churchill and Wilson, as a means of inducing AmericaтАЩs entry into World War IThe attack on Pearl Harbor was neither unprovoked nor a surpriseDuring the тАЬGood WarтАЭ the US government plotted and played politics with a view to becoming the dominant empireThere was no need to drop atomic bombs on Japan either to win the war or to save American livesUS decisions were central to the inability of the League of Nations and the United Nations to prevent warThe United States was more responsible than the Soviet Union for the Cold War;The Vietnam War was far from the only US military adventure during the Cold War that killed great numbers of civiliansThe US government organized false flag attacks that deliberately killed EuropeansAmericaтАЩs military interventions after the dissolution of the Soviet Union taught some conservatives (such as Andrew Bacevich and Chalmers Johnson) that the US interventions during the Cold War were not primarily defensiveThe conclusion deals with the question of how knowledge by citizens of how the American Empire has behaved could make America better and how America, which had long thought of itself as the Redeemer Nation, might redeem itself.
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David Ray Griffin is emeritus professor of philosophy of religion and theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University and the codirector of the Center for Process Studies. He edited the SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought, which published thirty-one volumes. He has written some thirty books, edited over a dozen, and authored more than 200 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?
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFileтАЩs award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of CardтАЩs Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
Claire Bloom gained international fame in 1951 with her screen debut in Charles ChaplinтАЩs motion picture Limelight. Among her many memorable films are Richard III, The Haunting, Look Back in Anger, and A DollтАЩs House.
