The Good Neighbor Policy was unique: a great power obligated itself not to use force in its dealings with twenty smaller powers and not to interfere in their domestic politics. It was a policy that lasted, with some perturbations, for twenty years: instituted by President Roosevelt in 1933 and carried out effectively from 1933 to 1943 by word and action, maintained during the Second World War largely as a result of British concern for continuance of Argentine beef exports, codified in the Charter of the Organization of American States in 1948, and reasserted by Truman and Acheson in 1950–51, it was covertly repudiated in Guatemala in 1954 by Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers, and not so secretly by Kennedy in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. Openly shattered in the Dominican Republic by Johnson in 1965, it has since been completely abandoned in favor of the usual relationships between large and small powers. Working with documents from the Public Records Office in London and the National Archives, with recently released materials from the U.S. Department of State, and with secondary sources, Bryce Wood describes the temptations laid before the leaders of one powerful state by its occasionally recalcitrant neighbors, and the ways of reacting that were found. Having told half the story in his The Making of the Good Neighbor Policy, Wood now concludes it in the present volume. One of the chief casualties is shown to be the Organization of American States, which since 1954 has found itself badly crippled in its work to promote harmony and continued cooperation among the member states.

This book examines U.S.–Latin American relations from an historical, contemporary, and theoretical perspective. By drawing examples from the distant and more recent past—and interweaving history with theory—Williams illustrates the enduring principles of International Relations theory and provides students the conceptual tools to make sense of inter-American relations. It is a masterful guide for how to organize facts, think systematically about issues, weigh competing explanations, and confidently draw your own conclusions regarding the past, present, and future of international politics in the region.

No previous work has covered the web of important players, places, and events that have shaped the history of the United States’ relations with its neighbors to the south. From the Monroe Doctrine through today’s tensions with Latin America’s new leftist governments, this history is rich in case studies of diplomatic, economic, and military cooperation and contentiousness. Encyclopedia of U.S.-Latin American Relations is a comprehensive, three-volume, A-to-Z reference featuring more than 800 entries detailing the political, economic, and military interconnections between the United States and the countries of Latin America, including Mexico and the nations in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America. Entries cover: Each country and its relationship with the United States Key politicians, diplomats, and revolutionaries in each country Wars, conflicts, and other events Policies and treaties Organizations central to the political and diplomatic history of the western hemisphere Key topics covered include: Coups and terrorist organizations U.S. military interventions in the Caribbean Mexican-American War The Cold War, communism, and dictators The war on drugs in Latin America Panama Canal Embargo on Cuba Pan-Americanism and Inter-American conferences The role of commodities like coffee, bananas, copper, and oil "Big Stick" and Good Neighbor policies Impact of religion in U.S.-Latin American relations Neoliberal economic development model U.S. Presidents from John Quincy Adams to Barack Obama Latin American leaders from Simon Bolivar to Hugo Chavez With expansive coverage of more than 200 years of important and fascinating events, this new work will serve as an important addition to the collections of academic, public, and school libraries serving students and researchers interested in U.S. history and diplomacy, Latin American studies, international relations, and current events.

Drawing on the research and experience of fifteen internationally recognized Latin America scholars, this insightful text presents an overview of inter-American relations during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. This unique collection identifies broad changes in the international system that have had significant effects in the Western Hemisphere, including issues of politics and economics, the securitization of U.S. foreign policy, balancing U.S. primacy, the wider impact of the world beyond the Americas, especially the rise of China, and the complexities of relationships between neighbors. The second edition of Contemporary U.S.-Latin American Relations focuses on U.S. neighbors near and far —Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. Each chapter addresses a country’s relations with the United States, and each considers themes that are unique to that country’s bilateral relations as well as those themes that are more general to the relations of Latin America as a whole. The book also features new chapters on transnational criminal violence, the Latino diasporas in the United States, and U.S.-Latin American migration. This cohesive and accessible volume is required reading for Latin American politics students and scholars alike.

A study of how and why US-Latin American relations changed in the 1930s: “Brilliant . . . [A] charming and perceptive work.” ―Foreign Affairs During the 1930s, the United States began to look more favorably on its southern neighbors. Latin America offered expanded markets to an economy crippled by the Great Depression, while threats of war abroad nurtured in many Americans isolationist tendencies and a desire for improved hemispheric relations. One of these Americans was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the primary author of America’s Good Neighbor Policy. In this thought-provoking book, Bolton Prize winner Fredrick Pike takes a wide-ranging look at FDR’s motives for pursuing the Good Neighbor Policy, how he implemented it, and how its themes played out up to the mid-1990s. Pike’s investigation goes far beyond standard studies of foreign and economic policy. He explores how FDR’s personality and Eleanor Roosevelt’s social activism made them uniquely simpático to Latin Americans. He also demonstrates how Latin culture flowed north to influence U.S. literature, film, and opera. This book is essential reading for everyone interested in hemispheric relations.

The United States emerged from World War II with generally good relations with the countries of Latin America and with the traditional Good Neighbor policy still largely intact. But it wasn’t too long before various overarching strategic and ideological priorities began to undermine those good relations as the Cold War came to exert its grip on U.S. policy formation and implementation. In The Truman Administration and Bolivia, Glenn Dorn tells the story of how the Truman administration allowed its strategic concerns for cheap and ready access to a crucial mineral resource, tin, to take precedence over further developing a positive relationship with Bolivia. This ultimately led to the economic conflict that provided a major impetus for the resistance that culminated in the Revolution of 1952—the most important revolutionary event in Latin America since the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The emergence of another revolutionary movement in Bolivia early in the millennium under Evo Morales makes this study of its Cold War predecessor an illuminating and timely exploration of the recurrent tensions between U.S. efforts to establish and dominate a liberal capitalist world order and the counterefforts of Latin American countries like Bolivia to forge their own destinies in the shadow of the “colossus of the north.”