Publishers Weekly
10/25/2021
Journalist Katz (The Big Truck That Went By) delivers a searing and well-documented portrait of early 20th-century U.S. imperialism focused on the career of U.S. Marine Corps major general Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940). Contending that American military actions served the interests of U.S. business and financial institutions, often with dire effects on local people, Katz provides the geopolitical context behind interventions in China, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and elsewhere, and visits each location to document the legacy of U.S. interference. He describes the terror campaign waged against residents of the Philippine island of Samar in retaliation for a 1901 insurgent attack that killed 48 U.S. soldiers, and notes that people still celebrate the uprising and mourn their forebears’ deaths in annual commemorations. In the Caribbean and Central America, Marines helped to install puppet leaders and organized militarized police forces who oppressed the people and smoothed the way for U.S. profiteers. All of these interventions were presented to the American people as heroic assistance for the development of people not ready to govern themselves, Katz notes. Butler’s evolution from the naive son of a prominent Quaker family who lied about his age to enlist in 1898 to a highly decorated major general whose 1935 book, War Is a Racket, condemned the antidemocratic actions he helped carry out provides the history’s intriguing through line. The result is an eye-opening portrait of American hubris. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
Finalist, Library of Virginia's 2023 People's Choice Awards
Our favorite Books of 2022, The Progressive
"Lively, deeply researched ... Katz’s engaging style brings history alive."
—Associated Press
"Like Butler himself, Katz’s book is singular and hard to pin down ... an exhilarating hybrid of studious history and adventuresome travelogue."
—Jacobin
"Katz’s realism may shock many readers, but they would be well served to join him in pulling back the curtain, tipping over the jugs of institutional Kool-Aid, and taking a long, cold hard look in the proverbial mirror. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, this is a raw historical perspective that will both fascinate and unsettle."
—Task and Purpose
"Katz expertly weaves together his insights from his years as a reporter for the Associated Press, often stationed in the same countries that Butler helped to remold to meet the demands of American corporations." —Emilio Leanza, The Progressive
“A sensational read”
—Mike Duncan, New York Times bestselling author and host of the Revolutions podcast
"Engaging ... Gangsters of Capitalism is not only a biography of Butler. The long-dead Marine also serves as Katz’s Virgil, leading him on a journey around the world and through the inferno of empire’s afterlife."
—The New Republic
"Immensely readable."
—The Federalist
"A real page-turner."
—Noam Chomsky
"A perfect marriage of author and subject...Blending first-person reportage and analysis with impressive historical detail, Katz uses Butler’s story to explore war and capitalism in the United States, and to assess the gap between our morals and the lives we actually live."
—Emily Tamkin, The New Statesman
"A superb book."
—Responsible Statecraft
"Stellar."
—Pod Save The People
"Surprising and very well-written... Smedley Butler emerges in Katz’s book as a kind of tragic villain. An idealistic boy grown into a monster, he served his country by ruining other countries beyond repair, and eventually seeing how much harm he had done. If the Americans today fret about migrants from Central America and Haiti, or the revived hostility of China, they can now see the origin of those threats."
—The Tyee
"A clear-eyed assessment of the United States’ experiment with empire and its legacy, as well as a journey through the life of a celebrated military leader."
—U.S. Naval Institute Magazine
"In an unsettling era in which Americans have been forced to contemplate the possible demise of their global empire, the remarkable life story of Smedley Butler is a primer on how that empire was wrought out of a string of long-obscured 'small wars,' coups and interventions a mere century ago ... A clear-eyed, excitingly-told look at that history, and a bracing, necessary read for our times."
—Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: a Revolutionary Life
"An excellent, excellent book. Katz writes really beautifully about very ugly things. I couldn't recommend this book more highly."
—Spencer Ackerman, author of Reign of Terror
“A relevant, readable effort to link past American colonialism to the present impulse to install homegrown leaders for life.”
—Kirkus
"Searing...An eye-opening portrait of American hubris."
—Publisher's Weekly
"A terrific read, forcing us to confront our founding contradiction of building 'an empire of liberty' and the shallow conception of 'manhood' that led to actions overseas inconsistent with our highest ideals. We must not 'manufacture amnesia.'"
—Congressman Ro Khanna
“A taut, unnerving account...By following Butler’s bloody trail around the world, Katz thoughtfully reckons with empire’s true cost”
—Daniel Immerwahr, professor of history at Northwestern University and author of How to Hide An Empire
"Butler was the Forrest Gump of US imperialism, in all the good and bad ways implied by that statement... Traveling in Butler's footsteps, Jonathan Katz devastatingly documents the toll of US interference around the globe from the late nineteenth century well into our own."
—Andrea Pitzer, author of Icebound and One Long Night
"A stunning book, part secret history and part globe-spanning journalism. ... Deeply reported and masterfully told, this book is indispensable reading from one of America’s most important foreign correspondents."
—Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling author of Kochland
"Katz is a wonderful writer and deep reporter who is perfectly poised to tell the story of American Empire."
—Peter Bergen, New York Times bestselling author of Manhunt
"May well be the most intrepid biography you will ever read... as compelling and colorful as the man himself... For anyone seeking to understand how the modern world came to be, Gangsters of Capitalism is an essential book."
—Ben Fountain, author of the National Book Award Finalist Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Library Journal
11/19/2021
The heart of reporter Katz's (The Big Truck That Went By) book is a biography of Smedley Butler (1881–1940), one of the most celebrated American war heroes of his time. Before retiring as brigadier general in 1931, Butler won 16 Marine Corps medals for bravery and two Medals of Honor while soldiering on in almost every military operation the United States engaged in—from the Spanish-American War to the Banana Wars of Central America and the Caribbean. Two years after retiring, Butler testified before Congress on an alleged plot by businessmen to topple the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration in favor of a pro—big business regime; two years later, Butler published his book War Is a Racket, about the military—industrial complex. Sandwiched into this narrative is a second, in which Katz describes his own visits to the sites of these wars and delivers a general indictment of U.S. military imperialism. VERDICT This book is really two books mashed into one, and not as successfully as they might have been. Katz's account of his own visits intrudes on his account of Smedley's life, and his indictment of military policy is interrupted by the constant return to biography. Only for military history completists.—David Keymer, Cleveland
Kirkus Reviews
2021-12-21
Character study of the Marine hero who became a radical critic of the system he’d fought to uphold.
Smedley Butler (1881-1940), whose father was a member of Congress, came from a prosperous, influential family. He was determined to excel, and nowhere else did he do so more than as an officer in the Marines, patrolling places such as the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico—islands that formed the basis of an American empire. In his nearly 35 years in uniform, Butler later said, “I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers….In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.” Foreign correspondent Katz bookends Butler’s service with a “Business Plot” that, filtered through the American Legion in the 1930s, was intended to mirror the rise of Mussolini in Italy. Butler was asked to head a column of World War I veterans in a march on Washington as Mussolini had marched on Rome, installing the president as a powerless figurehead fronting a fascist government. Butler replied to his interlocutor, “my interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy,” promising that he would raise an army to fight these homegrown fascists. He then took evidence of the plot to Congress, which did precisely nothing. Katz, naturally, links this plot to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Though Butler won two Medals of Honor and is exalted among Marines, Katz makes clear that it’s his heroism and not his politics that are remembered—and then dimly—even as he raised questions about American society and foreign policy that go unanswered today. The author is also not reticent about pointing out that Butler’s dedication to American democracy did not hinder him from crushing democratic movements in Cuba and Haiti, where he helped install regimes that were friendly to the autocracy he despised.
A relevant, readable effort to link past American colonialism to the present impulse to install homegrown leaders for life.
