Publisher's Synopsis
Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History brings together the most important documents on the history of the relationship between the United States and Latin America from the nineteenth century to the present. In addition to the standard diplomatic sources, the book includes documents touching on the transnational concerns that are increasingly taught in the classroom, including economic relations, environmental matters, immigration, human rights, and culture. The collection illuminates key issues while representing a variety of interests and views as they have both persisted and shifted over time, including often-overlooked Latin American perspectives and U.S. public opinion. A special feature of this book is the extensive introductions highlighting the historical context and significance of each of the 124 documents. This is an extraordinarily good documentary reader. It enriches the study of US relations with Latin America by including the otherwise silenced voices of Latin Americans, whose frequently conflicting agendas routinely have produced negotiations that limited US objectives in significant ways, without really threatening its hemispheric hegemony. It's potentially a very useful collection and one without significant competition. It's already the best collection available and an improved second edition likely would discourage competitors.
