Product Description

In this sweeping history of United States policy toward Latin America, Lars Schoultz shows that the United States has always perceived Latin America as a fundamentally inferior neighbour, unable to manage its affairs and stubbornly underdeveloped. Drawing upon archival sources, Schoultz shows how these core beliefs have not changed for two centuries. Self-interest has combined with a "civilizing mission" - a self-abnegating effort by a superior people to help a substandard civilization overcome its defects. While political correctness censors the expression of such sentiments today, the actions of the United States continue to assume the political and cultural inferiority of Latin America. Schoultz demonstrates that not until the United States perceives its southern neighbours as equals can a constructuve hemispheric alliance be anticipated.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #307680 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Review
This excellent study breaks new ground in a field so cluttered that one usually harbours very low expectations of originality, style and fresh scholarship. Schoultz, a political scientist hitherto best known for his study of human rights, has written a lucid history that derives much of its strength precisely from its understanding of the conservative and expansionist presumptions of those who have formulated and implemented US policy towards the rest of the continent since independence. This, though, is not an understanding assumed with the ease that one generally finds in texts on this topic; here it is based on meticulous research of primary documentation...Schoultz's knowledge of the sources comes through in the excellent use of quotation within a briskly written and delightfully jargon-free prose...Of the plethora of single-volume studies of this vital subject Lars Schoultz's is easily the best. -- James Dunkerly "International Affairs"