Beneath the United States

"This is a wonderful, sweeping history of U.S. relations with Latin America, from the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 to the late 20th century. Drawing on an enormous array of declassified documents from over the years, Schoultz shows that some very consistent themes ran through U.S. policy in that period. One was a presumption that the United States was, and ought to be, the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. Other scholars have called this the ‘hegemonic presumption’ – the idea that the United States could unilaterally dictate the terms of its relationship with Latin America. The second theme was the notion of a ‘civilising mission’. Not only was the United States entitled to be the dominant power in the hemisphere – it was a good thing, too. It was good for the United States and for Latin America, because the United States had its best interests at heart. Extremely. And that applies to the third theme, one of racial superiority. The reason the United States felt justified pursuing this ‘civilising mission’ was that it regarded Latin America as racially inferior. You don’t come across that approach today. But it was explicit in a lot of diplomatic correspondence before World War Two. The book is a wonderful read because Schoultz has done a great job extracting some phenomenally revealing passages from the historical record. You really get a sense of the way U.S. diplomats and decision-makers saw the region and their mission. This was one of the first books to argue that the relationship was about more than American self-interest. He does not deny the existence of an underlying policy of self-interest – a drive to defend the national interests of the United States. But he highlights an agenda of self-justification and self-righteousness that American policymakers also applied. They honestly thought they were ‘uplifting’ Latin America as they pursued their interests."