The Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World

Curtis has trawled through declassified government documents to reclaim our true history. By examining UK foreign policy from 1945 to the present day, he shows that although governments may change, in terms of our foreign policy it's "business as usual". Importantly, he shows how the media justifies and supports the government's policies and it's here that a Chomsky-style analysis comes in to play.

For me, this was an important book because there are very few books available that expose the dirty history of the UK but many on the USA; it's too easy to criticise the USA without being aware of our own complicity.

As a society, we have been brought up believing in the benevolence of our country and hearing about all the good things we have done. This book is an important counter-balance and, I believe, is essential reading, not just for us Brits to see what is really going on in our name but also for those in the "developing world" who are on the receiving end of policies.


Indispensible. Please read and pass to a friend.   January 25, 2005
A Philosophy and Ethics Reader
63 out of 71 found this review helpful

This should be essential reading for anyone voting in the up-coming UK elections. In a similar vein to classic texts by Noam Chomsky (and John Pilger) this uncovers the truth behind the rhetoric. But Curtis is more detailed in his research than either Chomsky or Pilger. The evidence is on every page: our politicians lie to us and that lying is endemic and systematic. That they lie is bad enough but when these lies hide the crimes documented in this book, crimes committed with your taxes and in your name, you should be angry and deeply saddened.
Buy this book; read it and pass it on to a friend; it is that important.


Proud to be British?   June 17, 2004
Colin Dean
65 out of 75 found this review helpful

Well if you thought that the UK was a force for good in the world then this book will shake your assumptions. In case after case Mark Curtis reveals the immoral and self centred nature of British foreign policy. We will do anything to make a shilling; destroy governments, sell arms to despots, cuddle up with tyrants and to hell with the consequences for the little people. This is a very well researched and disturbing read. Our behaviour in the post WW2 period has been nothing short of murderous. No matter who was in power at Westminster the crimes flowed on and nobody cared. A million dead in Indonesia, thousands dead in Afghanistan, Diego Garcia's population uprooted and then deserted, the sorry tale goes on.
Mark Curtis has little good to say about any of our recent politicians. The blessed Blair, that fudamentalist Christian and latter day crusader has been very effective in slaughtering Muslims, especially babies, but "to mention the indictment of Tony Blair for war crimes, to oppose British cooperation with the US because it is a consistent supporter of human rights abuses overseas, or even to end arms exports is "unthinkable" in the mainstream and would invite ridicule"

If you love the UK then read this book because somehow we need to change what is going on and you cannot do that unless you know what has been done in your name. Ethical foreign policy? You will not find it here.


Brilliant account of real British foreign policy   May 27, 2003
William Podmore (London United Kingdom)
27 out of 31 found this review helpful

In this richly informative book, Mark Curtis surveys Britain’s real role in the world. Part 1 details the British state’s policies under the Blair government. Part 2 studies its plans for the global economy, showing how Labour services capitalists at home and abroad. He finds in Eastern Europe ‘a new entrepreneurial and often criminal class’, a nice hint that he uses the terms ‘elite’ and ‘elites’ when writing about Britain and the USA only to get past the censorship.

Part 3 uses official records to examine four 1950s events: the MI6/CIA coup in Iran, the coup evicting British Guiana’s elected government, the war against Kenya (killing 150,000 people), and the war for Malaya’s rubber. Part 4 looks at the media, using as example 1965’s events, when the Labour government supplied warships, logistics and intelligence to support Suharto’s coup and massacre of a million people.

Curtis looks at Blair’s support for US wars on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan (20,000 killed, 500,000 refugees created), and Iraq. The US Assistant Secretary of State said, “when the Afghan conflict is over we will not leave central Asia. We have long-term plans and interests in this region.” The US now has 13 bases in nine countries there.

British forces are training Saudi Arabia’s military and security forces, just as the SAS and MI6 trained the mujehadin in the 1980s, in Britain’s biggest covert operation since 1945. Curtis also refutes Labour’s claim that it is ‘even-handed’ in the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Curtis proves that British foreign policy is not about promoting national interests or democracy. The British ruling class has never shrunk from using terrorism to advance its interests. Now Blair, Bush’s PR man, openly promotes expeditionary warfare, force projection operations and pre-emptive military force.

Economic penetration complements military aggression: Labour’s aid, debt relief and loans all depend on countries ‘creating a favourable climate for investment’. Workers have to oppose all attacks on sovereignty, economic or political, including the terrorism of the US and British states.


British foreign policy is a story of crimes against humanity   August 21, 2007
Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium)
9 out of 11 found this review helpful

Mark Curtis exposes British interventions abroad as part of an empirical project, not pursued independently anymore, but actually as a junior partner of the US in the latter's search for full spectrum dominance. This project is sold to the public as being a mission of `good soldiers'.

The fundamental aim of the US and British foreign policies is to benefit a transnational elite (an `overclass') by crushing independent forces outside the elite's control, by keeping crucial economic resources (oil, commodities) in correct hands and by helping disseminate a self-serving economic Gospel (free markets).
These ends justify all means: illegal wars (`people's lives are valueless when they get in the way of elitist interests'), arms sales (`the business of death'), trampling human rights, overthrow democratically elected governments, undermining independent national movements (calling them communist) or supporting dictatorial or fundamentalist regimes. Real democracy is seen as a threat by those elites.
These policies are also pursued via international institutions (WTO) and through monopolistic media, who lie overtly or by omission and are acting as Pravda-like state propaganda (Chalmers Johnson).
The ultimate result is a more unequal, more insecure world and a still lover living standard for the majority of the world population.
The author illustrates his arguments profusely. A few examples: Iraq (oil and control of the Middle East), Afghanistan (oil, military bases), South-Africa and Rhodesia (racism), Malaya (rubber), Kenya (land), Diego Garcia (military bases), British Guyana (sugar, bauxite), Indonesia (oil, nationalism).

But what to do? Promote political and economical democratization, a truly Herculean task.

This book is a must read for all those wanting to understand the Kafkaesk official and media environment we live in.