Andrew Bacevich in his article on the American empire in the Age of Trump, “Still Chasing the Wrong Rainbows” in The American Conservative, reacquaints readers concerning insights of  the radical revisionist historian William Appleman Williams. He could have added economist/historian Murray N. Rothbard to his list of “right wing” fans of Williams. Williams, along with C. Wright Mills and Herbert Marcuse, were the three godfathers of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Here is Rothbard’s critical review of William’s most acclaimed work, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Later in 1973 when Rothbard and then New Left historian Ronald Radosh put together the superb landmark book, A New History of Leviathan: Essays on the Rise of the Corporate State, Williams wrote the Introduction. It is still an excellent collection of historical essays and I keep my copy which I bought when it first came out close at hand.

The Best of Charles Burris