The United States and Latin America, 1945-2023
Multiple Choice Questions
Exam Questions
Discussion Questions
How did the Second World War alter the relationship between Latin America and the United States?
To what extent did the creation of the OAS reflect hemispheric unity in the late 1940s?
How did America influence events in Guatemala in the 1950s?
Contrast American involvement in Guatemala and Cuba.
How did the Alliance for Progress aim at rebuilding relationships with Latin America?
To what extent did the US move away from military intervention in Latin America after the Bay of Pigs landing in 1961?
What alternatives did revolutionaries and reformers present to American leadership in Latin America?
How did Cold War politics influence US involvement in Central America in the 1970s & 1980s?
How did American relationships with Latin America evolve after the end of the Cold War?
Compare and contrast the experiences of two Latin American countries with US involvement during the Cold War.
Exam Questions
How have economic disparities influenced the relationship between the United States and Latin America?
Which diplomatic and/or military initiatives by the United States have had the greatest consequence for Latin America since 1945?
To what extent did the Cold War alter the United States relationship with Latin America?
Weblinks
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1965Fullbright-US-DomRep1.asp – text of US speech appraising intervention in Dominican Republic 1965
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1965iap-afp1.asp – text of document on problems of Latin American economies 1965
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/intam09.asp – 1948 Treaty of Bogota on peaceful settlement of regional disputes
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000135796.pdf – text of CIA assessment of communist threat in Guatemala 1952
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-10/02.pdf – text of US planning document for intervention in Cuba 1962
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decad061.asp – Rio de Janeiro statement on regional peace and security 1947
http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953/10/16.htm – Castro speech in 1953 on conditions in Cuba
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/decad063.asp – 1949 US statement on hemispheric peace
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-nation-announcing-united-states-military-action-panama Bush statement on arrest of Manuel Noreiga in Panama 1989
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-nation-events-lebanon-and-grenada – Reagan statement on US intervention in Grenada 1983
Bibliography
Booth, William A., “Rethinking Latin America’s Cold War,” Historical Journal 64:4 (2021) 1128-1150.
Casals, Marcelo, “Which borders have not yet been crossed? A supplement to Gilbert Joseph’s Historiographical Balance of the Latin American Cold War”, Cold War History 20:3 (2020) 367-372.
Grandin, Greg, & Gilbert M. Joseph, eds., A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America’s Long Cold War, (Durham, NC: Duke University, 2011).
Hurtado-Torres, Sebastián & Joaquín Fermandois, “The War that Didn’t Break Out: Military Rule and Regional tensions in the Andes in the 1970s”, International History Review 42:5 (2020) 967-986.
Hurtado-Torres, Sebastián, The Gathering Storm: Eduardo Frei’s Revolution in Liberty and Chile’s Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2020).
Iber, Patrick, Neither Peace nor Freedom: The Cultural Cold War in Latin America, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
Joseph, Gilbert M., “The Continuing Challenge of Border Crossing: A Response to Marcelo Casals’ Commentary”, Cold War History 20:3 (2020) 373-377.
Keller, Renata, Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, The United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Marchesi Aldo & Michal Zourek, “The New Latin American Left in a Polarised Cold War: The Story of Vivian Trías”, Cold War History 22:1 (2022) 19-40.
Morley, Morris & Chris McGillion, Reagan and Pinochet: The Struggle over US Policy toward Chile (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Nateras, Gerardo Sánchez, “The Sandinista Revolution and the Limits of the Cold War in Latin America: The Dilemma of Non-Intervention during the Nicaraguan Crisis, 1977-78”, Cold War History 18:2 (2018) 111-129.
Sewell, Bevan, “A Perfect (Free-Market) World? Economics, the Eisenhower Administration, and the Soviet Economic Offensive in Latin America,” Diplomatic History 32:5 (2008) 841-868.