Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations

Written by Vijay Prashad

Narrated by Neil Shah

Washington Bullets is written in the best traditions of Marxist journalism and history-writing. It is a book of fluent stories, full of detail about US imperialism, but never letting the minutiae obscure the larger political point. It is a book that could easily have been a song of despair-a lament of lost causes; it is, after all, a roll call of butchers and assassins; of plots against people's movements and governments; of the assassinations of socialists, Marxists, communists all over the Third World by the country where liberty is a statue.

Despite all this, Washington Bullets is a book about possibilities, about hope, about genuine heroes. One such is Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso-also assassinated-who said: "You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future. It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future."

Washington Bullets is a book infused with this madness, the madness that dares to invent the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781666121025

Vijay Prashad

Vijay Prashad is the Executive Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is the author and editor of several books, including The Darker Nations: A Biography of the Short-Lived Third World (The New Press) and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (Verso). He writes regularly for Frontline, The Hindu, Alternet and BirGun. He is Chief Editor at LeftWord Books.

Reviews for Washington Bullets

[Raphael · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As a Brazilian, I already knew the vast majority of the facts exposed in the book, but the way they were systematically listed sheds light on the cruelty, the cynicism and how far the US government is capable of going to achieve its imperialist goals and total domination of the world.

The US is not only the source of all the evil in the world but also the primary example of the most abject way humans can behave: justifying its acts under the guise of platitudes like “bringing democracy and freedom” while only generating violence and death.

[Andrew Barnard · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Vijay Prashad shares a wealth of knowledge and perspective on this all-important subject.

[Eric Niederwemmer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you can't take seriously the claims made in this book, all verifiable with government documents and independent investigations, and just exactly what that says about our government and economy, then you my friend are just as brainwashed with propaganda as you probably believe the average Russian or Chinese citizen is.

[Drragon · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I’m all for criticism of imperialism and hypocrisy of various countries, companies, and institutions, so it was interesting to listen about criticism of US and other western countries. But when the author turns around and excuses Russia’s occupation of Crimea and actions in Syria as merely defensive (which is basically talking points taken directly from Russian state propaganda), in my mind, the author looses any credibility (and there were more such examples). Also checked paper version of the book, author doesn’t even bother to provide any sources.

Really had high expectations for this book, such a shame.