Democracy and U.S. Policy in Latin America During the Truman Years
Democracy and U.S. Policy in Latin America During the Truman Years

Author: Steven Schwartzberg

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780813033426

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Steven Schwartzberg reinterprets U.S. foreign policy in Latin America during the Truman presidency. He examines the dynamic interaction between American policy and political developments in Latin America to show how ideas for pursuing the common good were far more influential than notions of American economic and political interests, and that those ideas shifted with the course of ongoing political struggles in Latin America and with the convictions of individual American officials. Contrary to analyses that emphasize the growing Cold War rivalry in examining Latin American developments after World War II, Schwartzberg demonstrates that these superpower tensions were not the only influences in the post-1945 world. He richly documents social and political developments in Latin American countries, illustrating the receptivity of politicians, journalists, and others to U.S. initiatives and interventions in support of democracy. He also provides material on the emergence of CIA support for the democratic left and shows how Cold War considerations were associated with support for democratic and reformist movements generally. Schwartzberg challenges works that are strongly critical of U.S. policy in Latin America and documents his vision of the "civility of Yankee Imperialism" with a substantial array of archival and primary document material. He offers a new perspective on the motives of American officials and Latin American leaders, demonstrates the inadequacy of traditional conceptions of the influence of the Cold War in the region, and suggests an underlying unity in American global policy. He also shows that there was much greater autonomy in Latin American politics than diplomatic historians have previously recognized and that political leaders and developments in the region played a far more significant role in shaping American policy than Latin Americanists have previously perceived.

Eisenhower and Latin America
Eisenhower and Latin America

Author: Stephen G. Rabe

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 9780807842041

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Stephen Rabe's timely book examines President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Latin American policy and assesses the president's actions in light of recent "Eisenhower revisionism." During his first term, Eisenhower paid little attention to Latin America but his objective there was clear: to prevent communism from gaining a foothold. The Eisenhower administration was prepared to cooperate with authoritarian military regimes, but not to fund developmental aid or vigorously promote political democracy. Two events in the second administration convinced Eisenhower that he had underestimated the extent of popular unrest_and thus the potential for Communist inroads: the stoning of Vice-President Richard M. Nixon in Caracas and the radicalization of the Cuban Revolution. He then began to support trade agreements, soft loans, and more strident measures that led to CIA involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion and plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and Rafael Trujillo. In portraying Eisenhower as a virulent anti-Communist and cold warrior, Rabe challenges the Eisenhower revisionists who view the president as a model of diplomatic restraint.

The Truman Administration and Bolivia
The Truman Administration and Bolivia

Author: Glenn J. Dorn

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2015-08-21

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 027105686X

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The United States emerged from World War II with generally good relations with the countries of Latin America and with the traditional Good Neighbor policy still largely intact. But it wasn’t too long before various overarching strategic and ideological priorities began to undermine those good relations as the Cold War came to exert its grip on U.S. policy formation and implementation. In The Truman Administration and Bolivia, Glenn Dorn tells the story of how the Truman administration allowed its strategic concerns for cheap and ready access to a crucial mineral resource, tin, to take precedence over further developing a positive relationship with Bolivia. This ultimately led to the economic conflict that provided a major impetus for the resistance that culminated in the Revolution of 1952—the most important revolutionary event in Latin America since the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The emergence of another revolutionary movement in Bolivia early in the millennium under Evo Morales makes this study of its Cold War predecessor an illuminating and timely exploration of the recurrent tensions between U.S. efforts to establish and dominate a liberal capitalist world order and the counterefforts of Latin American countries like Bolivia to forge their own destinies in the shadow of the “colossus of the north.”

Neither Peace Nor Freedom
Neither Peace Nor Freedom

Author: Patrick Iber

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2015-10-13

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0674286049

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Patrick Iber tells the story of left-wing Latin American artists, writers, and scholars who worked as diplomats, advised rulers, opposed dictators, and even led nations during the Cold War. Ultimately, they could not break free from the era’s rigid binaries, and found little room to promote their social democratic ideals without compromising them.

Latin America’s Cold War
Latin America’s Cold War

Author: Hal Brands

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-03-05

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 0674055284

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For Latin America, the Cold War was anything but cold. Nor was it the so-called “long peace” afforded the world’s superpowers by their nuclear standoff. In this book, the first to take an international perspective on the postwar decades in the region, Hal Brands sets out to explain what exactly happened in Latin America during the Cold War, and why it was so traumatic. Tracing the tumultuous course of regional affairs from the late 1940s through the early 1990s, Latin America’s Cold War delves into the myriad crises and turning points of the period—the Cuban revolution and its aftermath; the recurring cycles of insurgency and counter-insurgency; the emergence of currents like the National Security Doctrine, liberation theology, and dependency theory; the rise and demise of a hemispheric diplomatic challenge to U.S. hegemony in the 1970s; the conflagration that engulfed Central America from the Nicaraguan revolution onward; and the democratic and economic reforms of the 1980s. Most important, the book chronicles these events in a way that is both multinational and multilayered, weaving the experiences of a diverse cast of characters into an understanding of how global, regional, and local influences interacted to shape Cold War crises in Latin America. Ultimately, Brands exposes Latin America’s Cold War as not a single conflict, but rather a series of overlapping political, social, geostrategic, and ideological struggles whose repercussions can be felt to this day.

A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations
A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations

Author: Christopher R. W. Dietrich

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2020-03-04

Total Pages: 1180

ISBN-13: 1119459400

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Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.

Beneath the United States
Beneath the United States

Author: Lars Schoultz

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1998-06-15

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 9780674043282

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In this sweeping history of United States policy toward Latin America, Lars Schoultz shows that the United States has always perceived Latin America as a fundamentally inferior neighbor, unable to manage its affairs and stubbornly underdeveloped. This perception of inferiority was apparent from the beginning. John Quincy Adams, who first established diplomatic relations with Latin America, believed that Hispanics were lazy, dirty, nasty...a parcel of hogs. In the early nineteenth century, ex-President John Adams declared that any effort to implant democracy in Latin America was as absurd as similar plans would be to establish democracies among the birds, beasts, and fishes. Drawing on extraordinarily rich archival sources, Schoultz, one of the country's foremost Latin America scholars, shows how these core beliefs have not changed for two centuries. We have combined self-interest with a civilizing mission--a self-abnegating effort by a superior people to help a substandard civilization overcome its defects. William Howard Taft felt the way to accomplish this task was to knock their heads together until they should maintain peace, while in 1959 CIA Director Allen Dulles warned that the new Cuban officials had to be treated more or less like children. Schoultz shows that the policies pursued reflected these deeply held convictions. While political correctness censors the expression of such sentiments today, the actions of the United States continue to assume the political and cultural inferiority of Latin America. Schoultz demonstrates that not until the United States perceives its southern neighbors as equals can it anticipate a constructive hemispheric alliance.

The Accidental President
The Accidental President

Author: Albert J. Baime

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 461

ISBN-13: 0544617347

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During the atomic, earthshaking first 120 days of Harry Truman's unlikely presidency, an unprepared, small-town man had to take on Germany, Japan, Stalin, and a secret weapon of unimaginable power--marking the most dramatic rise to greatness in American history.