Parmar’s new book documents in fascinating detail how Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, successfully decimated Socialist movements in Indonesia, Chile and Nigeria, and installed pro-American capitalist governments. INDERJEET Parmar details the central role played by powerful corporations of the USA in establishing American world hegemony over the last five-six decades. This dominance enabled the imposition of American model of economic "development" in Third World countries. It is an area of study that despite its importance, continues to be "puzzlingly" under-researched, writes the author, since the only other book on the subject was published nearly 30 years ago, in 1985. This underlines the significance of his present book, Foundations of the American Century: Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power, Columbia University Press, New York, 2012. Under the cloak of philanthropy, American foundations have worked in close liaison with US state department and US academic institutes, on the one hand, and with governments and academic worlds of third world countries, on the other hand, with the objective of spreading US capitalist ideology, through "cultural and intellectual penetration." This ongoing and self-serving exercise, geared to long range planning, backed by billions of dollars, has been nothing short of thought-surveillance and thought manipulation of the vulnerable poor of the world. The stated objectives of these philanthropies were to eradicate poverty, improve living standards and aid economic development in third world countries. In every one of these projects they failed miserably to improve living standards. However they succeeded admirably in their unstated objectives which were to create elite networks of knowledge in poor countries that would support "American policies, foreign and economic, ranging from liberalism in the 1950's to neo-liberalism in the 21st century." Parmar takes up three case studies of countries that in the early 1950s were considered regionally and strategically pivotal to American policy makers and foundations, Indonesia, Nigeria and Chile. In these countries, knowledge networks were established that specifically aimed at propagating a pro-American/Western approach to modernisation and development as opposed to nationalist or pro-socialist development. It was a long term investment that would bear fruit over a generation. By 1950 Britain had famously declined from heading a global empire to being a 'power struggling to find a role'. The USA on the other hand had emerged as the chief beneficiary of World War II, economically and financially. Its giant corporations benefiting from the spoils of war had literally become "para-states", as they came to be called. With their extraordinarily large wealth, they already composed the political and social elite of the US. Their philanthropic foundations had financed, even created from scratch, leading universities of the USA. In the previous century they had clawed their way to the top largely through "ruthlessness, bribery and outright exploitation of labour." In the USA, as in no other industrial nation, thus, organised labour had been "halted or neutralised or completely nullified". After achieving political dominance and control at home, they moved on to the international stage. South East Asia was a rich source of mineral resources, being a storehouse of most of the world’s rubber, tin, tungsten, among other things, and an important market for finished goods. It was also seen 'as significant to American security as the Panama and Suez Canals'. Equally significantly the 'growing influence of both communism and neutralism or independence' were perceived as threats to the US. Ford foundation's interests in Asian studies was specifically fired by two profound developments: the successful communist revolution in China in 1949, and the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950. Indonesia's communist political leadership that had roots in villages was seen as a direct threat to the interests of the Ford foundation. Ford commissioned a survey of Asian studies and spent $52 million from 1951-61. In 1954 Ford started the Modern Indonesia Project (MIP) at Cornell University. The original name of the project was "Techniques of Soviet indoctrination and control in Indonesia." Parmar details how by 1964 MIP had mobilised a 'strategically based academic and political elite that was increasingly frustrated with the Indonesian government's non-aligned, independent, anti-western and pro-left orientation'. A Left wing magazine in 1970 wrote that Ford, Rockefeller and the American state "consciously used its Indonesian programme to train anti-Sukarno economists and social scientists, cadre of leaders who would run Indonesia once Sukarno got out. Large grants had been provided to US universities, chiefly Berkeley, Yale and Cornell and to University of Indonesia (UI) for fellowships to Indonesian scholars to study at US universities. By the early 1960s, of the two dozen Ford scholars 22 had returned to join UI filling key positions and influencing other universities as well as the Indonesian state. Suharto was one of them. After the 1985 US backed military coup a pro-US military elite was installed. Sukarno was replaced with the CIA Ford scholar Suharto. The rest is history. The project to shift Indonesia out of the socialist/Soviet block, economically, politically, ideologically and militarily, into the western world, was complete. Its cost: one million Leftist Indonesians were massacred, one and a half million were imprisoned and the Indonesian Communist party was annihilated. In Ford's own triumphant internal report the massacre of one million Indonesian communists did not even warrant a foot note, though Ford admits to the death of half a million, in another communication. A similar programme called African Studies Alliance (ASI) was launched in 1957 in Nigeria. Millions of dollars were poured into the project to install a pro-western, anti-Soviet political elite. The new elite upon maturity signed technical and defence pacts with Britain, ignored the Soviet block and "legislated against the employment of known communists in the Nigerian civil service". The American foundation, concludes Parmar, "ended up pursuing a course of action, across several sectors, that exacerbated ethnic tensions, tolerated political and business corruption and generated a form of market economy that sharpened inequalities across ethnic groups and social classes". Their policies came to play a definitive role in Nigeria's slide into civil war. How Chile, that had been a welfare state since decades and been recognised as the epicentre of Latin American thought, was transformed into a laboratory for neo-liberal experimentation on a radical scale, is another fascinating horror-story, narrated by Parmar, backed by meticulous research. After the US backed military coup of 1973 Pinochet's brutal regime was installed. Allende's Socialist regime was physically destroyed. Ideas however cannot be physically destroyed, and Fords core mission/business was always ideas. Ford and Rockefeller had already provided substantial research funds from mid 1950s to 1970s to train neo-liberal Chilean economists to assist the future American propped regime of Pinochet. The stated aims of these 'Chicago boys' were to create programs for Chile's economic and social development. But the results were: Chilean freedoms were curtailed, democracy destroyed and human rights violated. Chilean society became more unequal and its economy became deeply indebted to international banks. Parmar's areas of research covered in this volume are only: Indonesia, Nigeria and Chile. However he does mention briefly another project with equal portents of tragedy. AGRA or African Green Revolution Alliance, a joint venture by Gates and Rockefeller Foundations that incorporates profit making investors such as the seed giant Monsanto, was started in 2006 in parts of Africa. The first experiment with the much trumpeted Green Revolution, as we know to our own cost, was conducted in India with primary focus on Punjab, in 1965-66. Ford philanthropy had already set up shop in the country since the early 1950s. The first Ford scholars/ beneficiaries were the well off farmers of Punjab and Indian bureaucrats. Today, the devastating effects of the capital-intensive, water-guzzling, soil-starving venture, that had directly benefited US corporations, while creating within a decade one lakh landless and unemployed in Punjab, as documented by Master Hari Singh was simply glossed over/denied by the Indian establishment for many decades. After all, the centre had achieved its primary objective, India was now food self sufficient. That millions all over the country unable to buy food, continued to starve was of no concern. Another ally of the establishment, the rich farmer of Punjab was created. The ranks of the landless and the unemployed continued to swell. Today its effects are all too apparent in Punjab's toxic soil and polluted waters, with lakhs of small farmers turned landless or driven to debt related suicides or drugs. Not that the foundations are not aware of their past policies in affected countries, but says Parmar, "their commitment to high tech, expert led solutions", and to "American/Western power and global leadership" soars way above their oft expressed and lofty interest in 'feeding the hungry and poor of this world'. This book certainly needs to be translated in regional Indian languages and made available at affordable price to the aam aadmi.