Foreword / by Luis Alberto Moreno -- Introduction / Sidney Weintraub -- United States / Frank Verrastro -- Canada / Annette Hester and Sidney Weintraub -- Mexico / Sidney Weintraub and Rafael Fernández de Castro -- North America / Joseph M. Dukert -- Venezuela / Lowell R. Fleischer -- Colombia / Philip McLean -- Argentina / Thomas Andrew O'Keefe -- Brazil / Georges D. Landau -- Ecuador / Lowell R. Fleischer -- Peru / Carol Wise -- Bolivia / Peter DeShazo -- Trinidad and Tobago / Anthony T. Bryan -- Energy infrastructure in the Western hemisphere / Veronica R. Prado -- Environmental issues in Latin America and the Caribbean / José Leal and Joseluis Samaniego -- Hydrocarbon sector organization and regulation / Michelle Michot Foss, Miranda Ferrell Wainberg, and Dmitry Volkov -- China and India come to Latin America for energy / Wenran Jiang -- A 2025 perspective on oil and natural gas in the hemisphere / Alan Hegburg -- Conclusions and looking ahead / Sidney Weintraub.

With President Hu Jintao's November 2004 visit to Latin America, China signaled to the rest of the world its growing interest in the region. Many observers welcome this development, highlighting the benefits of increased trade and investment, as well as diplomatic cooperation, for both sides. But other analysts have raised concerns about the relationship's impact on Latin American competitiveness and its implications for U.S. influence in Washington's traditional backyard. In C hina's Expansion into the Western Hemisphere, experts from Latin America, China, and the United States, as well as Europe, analyze the history of this triangular relationship and the motivations of each of the major players. Several chapters focus on China's growing economic ties to the region, including Latin America's role in China's search for energy resources worldwide. Other essays highlight the geopolitical implications of Chinese hemispheric policy and set recent developments in the broader context of China's role in the developing world. Together, they provide an absorbing look at a particularly sensitive aspect of China's emergence as a world power. Contributors include Christopher Alden (London School of Economics), Robert Devlin (ECLAC), Francisco González (Johns Hopkins–SAIS), Monica Hirst (Torcuato Di Tella University), Josh Kurlantzick (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Xiang Lanxin (Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva), Luisa Palacios (Barclays), Jiang Shixue (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Barbara Stallings (Brown University), Juan Tokatlián (San Andrés University), and Zheng Kai (Fudan University).

Since its creation in 1963, United States Southern Command has been led by 30 senior officers representing all four of the armed forces. None has undertaken his leadership responsibilities with the cultural sensitivity and creativity demonstrated by Admiral Jim Stavridis during his tenure in command. Breaking with tradition, Admiral Stavridis discarded the customary military model as he organized the Southern Command Headquarters. In its place he created an organization designed not to subdue adversaries, but instead to build durable and enduring partnerships with friends. His observation that it is the business of Southern Command to launch "ideas not missiles" into the command's area of responsibility gained strategic resonance throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America, and at the highest levels in Washington, DC.

Some vols. include supplemental journals of "such proceedings of the sessions, as, during the time they were depending, were ordered to be kept secret, and respecting which the injunction of secrecy was afterwards taken off by the order of the House."