In this in-depth account, anthropologist David Vine illuminates the role of military bases in fueling a largely unbroken history of American global intervention. The book is a sweeping indictment of the nation’s heavily militarized foreign policy, including the nearly incalculable costs, financial as well as moral, that have been exacted both at home and abroad.

The United States of Warimmediately becomes the definitive account of the history of U.S. overseas bases and their role in the history of American militarism.

Author Diana Darke was inspired to write Stealing From the Saracens after the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. “I suddenly realized that most of the world simply does not understand the back-story of European architecture,” she stated.

Pointed arches, trefoil arches and stained-glass windows—all recognizable features in Gothic cathedrals and buildings throughout Europe today—originated in the Islamic world of the East.