Finished (Audiobook) - "Events that Changed History" - The Great Courses

I liked "Events that changed history" to a point - what point?  Mid-20th century.  What lost me there?  The author's admission that he considers the U.S. the greatest country ever, that he is a patriot, and that the U.S. only does good works.

Immediately, I smell bias.  I think all "world powers", particularly at the height of their influence, feel exactly the same way - they want to share their culture, knowledge and world view, and for only the most altruistic of reasons.  However, as a historian, the author needs to step beyond that perspective.

I'm not a U.S. hater, I grew up on the Canadian side of the border, but as close as you can get.  However, I fail to see how the Cold War was always positive, even if the ultimate goals were considered required and honourable (some of the games were harmful to the countries where they were played out - Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, South America Cuba, border regions in Europe where the Iron Curtain was laid out...).  You don't have to be a communist to see that capitalism is not a force for pure good (slavery in the older days, sub-subsistence wages in the current environment).

It is hard to understand the role of the U.S. in world history, and to understand what will be seen as positive and negative in the view of future historians because we are still in the U.S.-era - we don't have the luxury of perspective from the post-U.S. era.  However, that doesn't allow historians to be flag wavers - they, more than most, need to keep their perspective and throw away the rose-coloured glasses.  Kennedy's assassination was a key point in recent history - I would have loved some understanding of what might have changed in the next election (or the 2nd Kennedy term) had he lived.  What further outcome to the Bay of Pigs/October Crisis might have arisen in a longer Kennedy presidency?  Might detente have come 20 years earlier?  Might Vietnam ended earlier or lasted longer, or spread more widely?  This would have provided the impetus for making the list.

9-11 ends the events - but is there enough perspective to do this justice?  What is the difference between the wars in Afghanistan (widely supported in the world) vs. Iraq (very little support) and how will that effect the U.S. international status in the longer term?  Changes to U.S. privacy laws, and pre-emptive arrest, Guantanamo - how are these changes expected to alter the basis the U.S. was founded on?  How do they influence world opinion of the U.S.?  Even with the stated goal of reducing terrorism - does it makes sense - is in inflaming rather than resolving?

I think the author might have been wiser to stop sometime around the Wright Brothers, where there is a key linkage between their experiments and subsequent world events (shrinking of the world through air travel, increases arsenals for wartime use, eventual moon landings...) and leave more recent history for historical fiction, or for a more nuanced and independent analysis.