The Second Century

U.S.-Latin American Relations Since 1889

Bibliographic Data

ID7790744
AuthorsMichael L Krenn (University of Miami, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume80
Issue3
Pages639-641
Publication date2000-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-80-3-639
OpenAlexW1519231557
LanguageEN
Citations received5

As one of the leading scholars of U.S.–Latin American relations, Mark Gilderhus has heard the complaint before: for those who teach inter-American relations on a regular basis, finding a good, single-volume synthesis of the most important scholarship on the subject is often a frustrating search. In an effort to at least partially address that concern, Gilderhus has produced a fine brief book that not only summarizes the most important events and issues which have made up the relationship between the United States and Latin America since the 1880s but also the debates and interpretations through which historians have attempted to define those relations.Gilderhus begins his study with the First International American Conference held in 1889. During the 1880s and 1890s the United States began to shift its diplomatic endeavors “away from the reactive, improvisational style so characteristic of the immediate post-Civil War era and toward a more systematic, expansive approach” and the 1889 conference was the first concrete example of this “new diplomacy” in regards to Latin America (p. 2). Successive chapters take the reader through the early twentieth century uses of gunboat- and dollar-diplomacy, the Good Neighbor policy, Cold War relations between the United States and Latin America, and conclude with the Clinton Administration’s struggles with NAFTA, drug trafficking, environmental issues, and immigration. The focus of the study is on inter-American political and economic relations, though social and cultural interchanges are not entirely ignored. Gilderhus is clear about the main approaches he uses in telling his story. First, he examines the “goals and tactics” of the United States—the “nature of hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.” Second, he looks to illuminate the responses of Latin America—the “often nationalistic reactions to unwanted dependencies upon the Colossus of the North.” Finally, Gilderhus seeks to define the “place of U.S.–Latin American relations within the larger contexts of politics and economics” (p. xi).As a synthesis, Gilderhus’s book naturally relies exclusively on secondary literature as its source of information. Unlike many other studies of this type, however, the author truly allows the historians he cites to have their say. Rather than merely summarizing the important points from the relevant monographs and articles, Gilderhus quotes freely from authors such as Louis Pérez, Stephen Rabe, Gaddis Smith, Peter H. Smith, Frederick B. Pike, Walter LaFeber, John Coatsworth, and Victor Bulmer-Thomas. The result is not, however, a mish-mash of quotations, one after the other. Instead, Gilder-hus’s approach allows the reader to see how historians work: how they define the significant historical issues; what evidence they use to support their points; how and why they disagree; and, finally, how this sometimes slow-moving, sometimes rancorous, but always essential process lies at the heart of the historians’ task of making history valuable and meaningful for today’s world. For example, in one section of the book LaFeber, Robert Beisner, and Michael Hunt examine the question of what forces drove America’s foreign policy during the late 1800s. LaFeber looks at trade and production statistics to emphasize the economic underpinnings of that policy; Beisner studies the political foundations, arguing that U.S. policy was too amateurish at the time to have the focus and power described by LaFeber, and that economics was but one aspect of America’s diplomacy; while Hunt takes an in-depth look at the intellectual and cultural evidence of the late 1800s to discover what he calls America’s diplomatic “ideology,” which included definite strains of racism, anti-revolutionary attitudes, and an often arrogant definition of America’s “mission” in the world (pp. 5–7). As Gilderhus suggests in his conclusion, participants in the “next century” of U.S.–Latin American relations would do well to consider that those relations are not often given to monocausal explanations and that a careful consideration of the varied evidence and aspects relating to inter-American affairs is essential to understand both U.S. goals and Latin American responses.As with any project of this sort which tries to bring together such a vast body of literature certain gaps and problems inevitably crop up. Despite the fact that Gilderhus does not ignore the social and cultural aspects of U.S.–Latin American relations, they are often thrust into the background. The role of racism and cultural stereotypes in U.S. policy formulation, for example, is sketchy. In addition, Gilderhus’s attention to the Latin American side of the relationship is sporadic; we learn much more about U.S. goals than Latin American responses. Finally, the brief nature of the book sometimes works against the author’s goal of examining the historiography of inter-American relations. In the section dealing with interwar diplomacy, for example, Michael Hogan’s use of “corporatist” theory is mentioned, but this complex approach is never truly defined. Gilderhus is clearly aware of these problems, and his extensive endnotes and bibliography are ample roadmaps for the student or scholar seeking additional information. As such, this book admirably fulfills its task of providing the reader with a solid and informative summary of the “second century” of U.S.–Latin American relations

Diplomacy · Diplomatic history · Economic history · Foreign policy · Foreign relations · International relations · Latin Americans · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · State (computer science) · Subject (documents) · History · International Relations in Latin America · Law

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