You're probably hoping for something less dry, because there's no escape in these:
William A. Williams (with the sadistic parents), _Empire as a Way of Life_
Traces the imperial impulse in the US back before 1776. Weirdly topical now for being written in 1980.
Andrew Bacevich, _The New American Militarism_
This one was underwhelming after all the interviews with Tom Englehardt. It gets off to a bad start when he seems to think that he invented the structural critique (vs. focussing on personalities) and includes Chomsky of all people in those guilty of the latter. Plus he seems to think that the militaristic thing went big with Reagan, though it seems more to track his own loss of innocence. Still it's worth reading for his take from within the military, and his account of the early neocons sucks the air out of the room -- it sounds completely insane even as you know what became of it.
James Carrol, _House of War_
Long history of the Pentagon starting around 1940. I doubt too much of it's new material, but it includes plenty of interest: early moral and PR concerns about bombing and The Bomb (they felt they had to sell it to the US public!), relief from any need to feel nostalgic about Nixon or even Eisenhower. I'm in the middle of the "madman" part. It's good background reading for some of the RAND/state dept./NSC references that Chomsky keeps trucking out.
I need something less unrelentingly gray.
-- Andy