Publisher's Synopsis
In this work, historian Lester Langley offers a fresh interpretation of the history of the modern Western hemisphere since the mid-19th century. He evaluates the dynamics of hemispheric history, commencing with the articulation of the "two Americas" (Theodore Roosevelt's America and the contrasting America described by Cuban revolutionary, essayist, and poet Jose Marti) and culminating with controversial efforts to forge a united hemisphere.;Tracing the interactions and influences among the nations of South, Central, and North America, including Canada, Langley departs from other accounts of the past 150 years. He argues that the seedtime for contemporary Americas was not the Cold War but the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He also contends that it is not what the countries and people of the Americas have in common that binds them; instead, their cultural, political, and economic conflicts tie them together. Comprehensive and balanced, this history of the nations of the Americas offers new insights into both the past and the future of inter-American relations.
