Chapter 15: Latin America in the World Arena, 1800s-1980s

Fascination with hemispheric affairs has led to numerous interpretive syntheses. Among them are G. Pope Atkins, Latin America and the Caribbean in the International System (Boulder: Westview, 2001); Robert A. Pastor, Exiting the Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean (Boulder: Westview, 2001); Gregory Weeks, U.S. and Latin American Relations (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008); and Mark Eric Williams, Understanding U.S.-Latin American Relations: Theory and History (New York: Routledge, 2012).  In Talons of the Eagle: Latin America, the United States, and the World, 4^th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), Peter H. Smith places the conduct of inter-American relations within changing patterns of global and historical contexts.

Prominent historical studies include Mark T. Gilderhus, The Second Century: U.S.–Latin American Relations since 1889 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2000); and Thomas F. O’Brien, The Century of U.S. Capitalism in Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999), which explores the changing roles of American business interests. An excellent collection of primary documents is Robert H. Holden and Eric Zolov, eds., Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History, 2^nd edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

The attitudinal underpinnings of U.S. policy toward Latin America have captured particular interest.  The most outstanding example of this genre is Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). Others include Eldon Kenworthy, America/Américas: Myth in the Making of U.S. Policy toward Latin America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); and James Williams Park, Latin American Underdevelopment: A History of Perspectives in the United States, 1870–1965 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995). A graphic record of U.S. popular disdain for Latin America emerges from John J. Johnson, Latin America in Caricature (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980).

Conceptualization of U.S. hemispheric strategy as a form of “imperialism” has emerged through such studies as Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansionism, 1860–1898 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963).  Greg Grandin offers a devastating critique of U.S. policy in Empire’s Workshop: Latin America and the Roots of U.S. Imperialism (New York: Henry Holt, 2006). A similar outlook appears in Brian Loveman, No Higher Law: American Foreign Policy and the Western Hemisphere since 1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).  An insightful (but not easily accessible) approach to processes of cultural interpenetration appears in Gilbert M. Joseph, Catherine C. LeGrand, and Ricardo D. Salvatore, eds., Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of U.S.–Latin American Relations (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998).

America’s promotion (or obstruction) of democratic political change in the Americas has provoked intense controversy.  A highly influential (and mildly skeptical) collection of essays is Abraham F. Lowenthal (ed.), Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). Resolutely critical interpretations come from David F. Schmitz, Thank God They’re on Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921–1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999) and Schmitz, The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1965-1989 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).  On a more positive note, FDR’s Good Neighbor policy has attracted considerable attention. The classic studies are Bryce Wood’s two volumes—The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961) and The Dismantling of the Good Neighbor Policy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985).

The priorities and processes of U.S. policy making during the Cold War have offered topics for continuing research. An especially influential interpretation of “bureaucratic politics” has been Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1999), first published in 1971. Broader in focus is Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy toward Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), which illustrates the roles of Congress and public opinion, and his subsequent study, National Security and United States Policy toward Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), which argues that national security doctrines were, in the long run, more influential than preoccupations with democracy or human rights. A historical overview of the Cold War period emerges from Gaddis Smith, The Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine, 1945–1993 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994).  Recent interpretations include Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniela Spenser (eds.), In from the Cold: Latin America’s New Encounter with the Cold War (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2008), and Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).

Probing treatment of the Eisenhower years (1953–61) appears in Stephen G. Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988).  JFK’s brief but promising presidency is the subject of Rabe’s subsequent study, The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).

Ronald Reagan’s policies toward Central America throughout the 1980s have produced a raft of scholarly analyses. Prominent among them are Thomas Carothers, In the Name of Democracy: U.S. Policy toward Latin America in the Reagan Years (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991); Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993); John H. Coatsworth, Central America and the United States: The Clients and the Colossus (New York: Twayne, 1994); William M. LeoGrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States and Central America, 1977–1992 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); and Greg Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Also pertinent is Peter M. Sanchez, Panama Lost? U.S. Hegemony, Democracy, and the Canal (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007).

A handful of testimonials by Latin American political actors has appeared in English translation.  One influential anthology is Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdés (eds.), Che: Selected Writings of Che Guevara (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969); see also Jorge Castañeda’s controversial Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). Memoirs from Central America include Rigo­berta Menchú, I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (London: Verso, 1984); and Omar Cabezas, Fire from the Mountain: The Making of a Sandinista (New York: Crown, 1985). Unpleasant recollections from Argentina appear in Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number (New York: Random House, 1981); and in Horacio Verbitsky, The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior (New York: New Press, 1996).

Termination of the Cold War ushered in a hopeful period of change. An insightful analysis of prospects for the 1990s appears in Jorge G. Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).  Efforts to promote democracy and peace are analyzed in Tom Farer (ed.), Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and Tommy Sue Montgomery (ed.), Peacemaking and Democratization in the Western Hemisphere: Multilateral Missions (Coral Gables: North-South Center Press, 2000). Equally significant is the measured assessment in Kathryn Sikkink, Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), which focuses on long-term trends in U.S. policy.   A book-length treatment of Bill Clinton’s presidency is David Scott Palmer, U.S. Relations with Latin America during the Clinton Years: Opportunities Lost or Opportunities Squandered? (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006).