Customer Reviews

Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In this readable and comprehensive book Schoultz describes the relations between the United States and Latin America. He shows the domestic politics, attitudes and individuals that made Americas relations with Latin America. We see the ignorance and attitude of superiority that was first stated by John Adams, and never totally went away. He demonstrates how England's influence in Latin America effected American relations. Schoultz also shows the ignorance, actions and attitudes of a series of diplomats, and how they made policy.

Schoultz describes how slavery effected the domestic politics that helped create the American relations toward Latin America until the Civil War. After the Civil War American began a policy of paternalism and then imperialism. America had two goals in her relations with Latin America, to help Latin America, and to replace European influence in Latin America. Good intentions and ignorance lead to a series of interventions in countries like Cuba and Nicaragua. Later America developed the policies of Dollar Diplomacy, and then the Good Neighbor policy. Finally we see the attempts to eliminate the influence of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in Latin America.
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Schoultz concludes that American policy in Latin America was dictated by security, economic interests and domestic politics. Policy was made and executed by people who often tried to help Latin America and failed through ignorance of the local conditions, and then blamed their failures on the Latin Americans, maintaining the superior attitude toward Latin Americans.

There is a series of good maps to clarify the test are included. Schoultz uses a wide variety of primary sources to tell this rarely told story

The author presents the USA-latin america relations over 200 years. The aim of the author is not only to present the facts, but more importantly, the perception of Latin america by US policy makers which motivated the actions, and how this perception has lasted over this period. This is a huge research work, based nearly exclusively on original documents. The work however, is exposed in a very synthetic and elegant way. I would rate it as a classic History work.

I'm writing my dissertation on U.S. foreign policy 1898-1941 and Schoultz's book is the best survey of U.S.-Latin American relations that I have found. Truly excellent scholarship without an ideological agenda.

It's worthwile the time I spent on it. At the beginning the chapters go smoothly then the author's inspiration becomes a blow by blow account. From the Revolution to the Civil war period, the US-Latin American relations are described with more clarity and vigour, a 5 stars. After the civil war, something is lost, 3 stars. However, it's a very interesting book and useful to understand how US is so involved in countries that at first sight seem to have a marginal strategic interest.

This book is an attempt to combine a general text overviewing US foreign policy in Latin America (which is in general quite good) with an indictment of any Americans who view culture as important to understanding Latin America (which is based far more on ideological ferver than evidence). If Schoultz had dropped the ideological baggage, this could have been a very good book. But he did not, so I will give it 2 stars. Unfortunately, as his book progresses, the ideology gets stronger and stronger.

Lars Schoultz's book writes that American foreign policy towards Latin America has been determined "a pervasive believe that Latin Americans constitute an inferior branch of the human species (Preface)". Much of this book is filled with quotes from various members of the American government making very unpolitically correct comments about Latin Americans, but I don't think that any of them show that American officials view Latin Americans as "an inferior branch of the human species." Schoultz's has a very disappointing tendency to jump from interesting historical narrative to excessive ideological rhetoric. The author seems to think that any observation of problems in Latin American being related to traditional institutions or values is little short of racism.

The biggest problem with his thesis is that he cannot explain all the twist-and-turns over time and geographical variation of American foreign policy with an explanation that never changes (American's feeling of Latin inferiority). In most cases, he does not even try, which make me wonder how much he really believes his own theory.

Schoultz gives no evidence that American attitudes towards Latins is the driving force behind these changes. Nor can he explain why some countries played a far more important role (Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Cuba) than others (Costa Rica, Brazil, etc).

Schoultz says that "Today's public opinion polls indicate that the rough outlines of the 'Latin American' mind-set are shared by the broad spectrum of the US public (pg xvii)." OK, great, so show the evidence. He does not in this page or any other. This is maddening tendency that he has.

The heart of the matter is that Schoultz seems to completely reject the use of culture as an explanation for anything. He then accuses the person who believes in cultural explanations as believing that "Latin are inherently inferior." Shoultz claims that all those who believe that cultural is an important explanation of Latin American culture and institutions are merely making an "educated guess" (pg 382). He also states that "it may be possible that such a thing as "Hispanic culture" actually exist. My guess is that the people living in Latin American would be far more offended by this belief than anything documented in this book.

This book presents a highly distorted analysis of U.S. policy toward Latin America that reflects the leftist political correctness of so many universities and their misguided professors, who are often members of the Latin American Studies Association. It is a perfect example of the destructive role some academics have played in U.S.-Latin American relations as so devastatingly described in Lawrence Harrison's book "The Pan American Dream".

To better appreciate the intellectual origins of Schoultz's book, readers should see "The Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot" written by some of the region's most prominent writers--Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, as well as their "Fabricantes de Miseria". You should also review "The Latin Americans: Their Love Hate Relationship with the United States" by the Venezuelan Carlos Rangel. Schoultz conveniently ignores these and other books by leading Latin Americans that confirm the cultural views of many U.S. and European diplomats.

Even great luminaries like Francisco de Miranda of Venezuela and Simon Bolivar himself used cultural characteristics to describe the differences between the United States and Latin America. Modern day writers such as the famous Peruvian novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa, and the Argentine, Mariano Grondona, among others, continue to use similar cultural analyses to explain why the U.S. has become the most advanced country in the hemisphere while Latin America remains mired in poverty, underdevelopment, corruption and political instability.

In a similar manner, prominent European observers such as the great Alexis de Tocqueville, used cultural phenomenon to explain the reasons why the United States and Latin America evolved along different paths. The views described by Schoultz are not unique to American diplomats but reflect long-standing observations made by many analysts, including some of the region's leading intellectuals and statesmen. Schoultz's arrogant attitude that only U.S. academics understand Latin Americans does a tremendous disservice to the history of U.S.-Latin American relations and to the U.S diplomatic service.