Contents: (1) February 27, 2010, Earthquake: Current Conditions; Chilean Government Response; (2) Political and Economic Background: Independence through Allende; Pinochet Era; Return to Democracy; (3) Recent Political and Economic Developments: Bachelet Administration: Education Demonstrations; Mapuche Activism; Loss of Legislative Control; Global Financial Crisis; 2009 Presidential and Legislative Elections: Results; Prospects for the Piñera Administration; Human Rights; Energy Challenges; (4) Chile-U.S. Relations: U.S. Assistance: Free Trade Agreement; Regional Leadership; Narcotics and Human Trafficking. Charts and tables.

The United States and Chile is the ideal introduction to U.S.- Chilean relations. From our strained Cold War relations and the Allende assassination to current democratic and economic development, senior scholars Mares and Aravena deftly trace the path of the relationship from early partners, through tense Cold War stand-offs, to the slowly warming relations of the present. The authors include information on General Augusto Pinochet's human rights violations, his current prosecution for them, and the United State's complicity in bringing him to power. Chile is only just now recovering from decades of political instability and government abuses, and this volume provides a thorough look back, and an informed vision of the future.

In ""Chile and the United States,"" the third volume to appear in the series ""The United States and the Americas,"" William F. Sater traces the often stormy course of U.S.-Chilean relations, covering not only policy decisions, but also the overall political, cultural, and economic developments that formed the context in which those policies unfolded. As Sater explains, the Chileans initially believed that they could truimph in the event of a clash with the Americans because of their superior moral commitment and willingness to endure sacrifice. Sater shows, by the end of the 19th century Chile had to face reality: its organizational skills could no longer compensate for a limited population and resource base. In the early 2Oth century, Sater notes, Chile scored several economic and diplomatic victories over the United States and, after World War II, resorted to various new doctrines and strategies in hopes of regaining its glory. Sater contends, rather than accept that geopolitical and economic realities had limited their nation's place in the world, Chileans blamed the United States for whatever ills befell them-even as they continued to expect American aid. For its part, the United States insisted that Chile accept its counsel in order to receive U.S. economic assistance. This frustrating standoff, Sater shows, is but the latest phase of a contentious relationship, nearly two centuries in the making, that shows no ready signs if disapearing.

Fidel Castro described Salvador Allende's democratic election as president of Chile in 1970 as the most important revolutionary triumph in Latin America after the Cuban revolution. Yet celebrations were short lived. In Washington, the Nixon administration vowed to destroy Allende's left-wing government while Chilean opposition forces mobilized against him. The result was a battle for Chile that ended in 1973 with a right-wing military coup and a brutal dictatorship lasting nearly twenty years. Tanya Harmer argues that this battle was part of a dynamic inter-American Cold War struggle to determine Latin America's future, shaped more by the contest between Cuba, Chile, the United States, and Brazil than by a conflict between Moscow and Washington. Drawing on firsthand interviews and recently declassified documents from archives in North America, Europe, and South America--including Chile's Foreign Ministry Archive--Harmer provides the most comprehensive account to date of Cuban involvement in Latin America in the early 1970s, Chilean foreign relations during Allende's presidency, Brazil's support for counterrevolution in the Southern Cone, and the Nixon administration's Latin American policies. The Cold War in the Americas, Harmer reveals, is best understood as a multidimensional struggle, involving peoples and ideas from across the hemisphere.