Chapter 7: Colombia
Colombia has received less attention from U.S. scholars than have most other countries of the region, perhaps because it does not comply with preconceived stereotypes about Latin America. But it has a fascinating history, as shown by two excellent texts: David Bushnell, The Making of Modern Colombia: A Nation in Spite of Itself (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), a highly readable account of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and Frank Safford and Marco Palacios, Colombia: Fragmented Land, Divided Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), with an emphasis on socioeconomic trends from the colonial era to the present.
Agrarian conflict is ably explored in Catherine Legrand, Frontier Expansion and Peasant Protest in Colombia, 1850–1936 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), while the social and political consequences of coffee production are traced in Marco Palacios, Coffee in Colombia, 1850–1970: An Economic, Social, and Political History (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1980), and in Charles W. Bergquist, Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886–1910 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1978). Another important Colombian export is studied in Marcelo Bucheli, Bananas and Business: the United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899–2000 (New York: New York University Press, 2005). The interplay of race and politics is carefully considered in James E. Sanders, Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-Century Colombia (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004).
The story of the Panama Canal is masterfully told in David McCullough, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–1914 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977). For a sharply analytical view, see Walter La Feber, The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective, updated ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). On broader U.S. relations with Colombia, see Richard Lael, Arrogant Diplomacy: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia, 1903–1922 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1987), and Stephen J. Randall, Colombia and the United States: Hegemony and Interdependence (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992).
Insights into twentieth-century politics abound in Herbert Braun, The Assassination of Gaitán: Public Life and Urban Violence in Colombia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), and in Jonathan Hartlyn, The Politics of Coalition Rule in Colombia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). La Violencia is analyzed in James D. Henderson, When Colombia Bled: A History of the Violence in Tolima (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985), and in Charles Bergquist, Ricardo Peñaranda, and Gonzalo Sánchez, eds., Violence in Colombia: The Contemporary Crisis in Historical Perspective (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1992). The on-going conflicts in the country are considered in Jofefina A. Echavarría, In/security in Colombia: Writing Political Identities in the Democratic Security Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010); Clemencia Rodríguez, Citizens’ Media against Armed Conflict: Disrupting Violence in Columbia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011); and Nazih Richani, Systems of violence: The Political Economy of War and Peace in Colombia, 2nd ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2013)
Drug trafficking has received increasing attention from scholars. Still-relevant collections of essays are Peter H. Smith, ed., Drug Policy in the Americas (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992), and Bruce M. Bagley and William O. Walker III, eds., Drug Trafficking in the Americas (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1994). Inside stories from journalists include Guy Gugliotta, Kings of Cocaine: Inside the Medellín Cartel (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989); Mark Bowden, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001); and Grace Livingstone, Inside Colombia: Drugs, Democracy and War (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004). Recent studies on U.S. involvement include Mario Murillo and Jesus Rey Avirama, Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest, and Destabilization (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004); Doug Stokes, America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia (London, New York: Zed Books, 2004); and Oliver Villar and Drew Cottle, Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror: U.S. Imperialism and Class Struggle in Colombia (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011).