The Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine, 1945-1993 [Paperback]

Gaddis Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 1995

Notes, bibliography, index.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

President Monroe's 1823 message to Congress, declaring that the U.S. would brook no foreign intervention in our hemisphere, became a Cold War tool to justify Latin American dictatorships, CIA-funded death squads and repressions to ward off an alleged communist threat, contends Smith, a history professor at Yale. In a cogent study, he explains how the U.S. molded the U.N. Charter to bar the U.N. from political involvement in the West. Eisenhower used the Monroe Doctrine as a cover to overthrow Guatemala's liberal reformist president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954, replacing him with a dictator. Critics blasted Kennedy for failing the Doctrine by allowing Cuba to become a "Soviet protectorate." Ostensibly to prevent another Cuba, the efforts of LBJ and Nixon to bolster repressive regimes in Brazil and Chile were "infused with Monroeism," and Reagan invoked it in his proxy war against Nicaragua's Sandinistas. Smith argues that the Doctrine has become irrelevant with the end of the Cold War.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The Monroe Doctrine, first proclaimed by President James Monroe in 1823, has served as a guidepost for American policy toward Latin America for 170 years. Smith, one of our most prominent diplomatic historians and director of Yale's Center for International and Area Studies, provides an historical overview of our use of this doctrine in our sometimes tortuous relations with our neighbors to the south. Smith's basic point is that with the demise of the Soviet Union, the Monroe Doctrine and its use as a justification for American intervention in the affairs of nations below the Rio Grande has passed into history. Indeed, Smith argues, even by the 1980s, U.S. activities in Panama, Nicaragua, and Grenada were defended as necessary not because of fears of Soviet aggression but by concerns over such local issues as drug smuggling and failing economies. This is solid and informative history written by a well-established master of the craft. Recommended for all libraries.
Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang (November 30, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809015684
• ISBN-13: 978-0809015689
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,275,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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