Uncle Sams War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization or Latin America in the World Econ P

Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization

Author: Thomas Schoonover

"Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization examines the growth of the American empire from its early nationhood to its first global military conflict. As the fledgling nation's military, industrial, and economic strength developed, the United States created policies designed to protect itself from challenges beyond its borders. According to Schoonover, a surge in U.S. activity in the Gulf-Caribbean and in Central America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was catalyzed by the same avarice and competitiveness that motivated European adventurers to seek a route to Asia centuries earlier." Schoonover locates the origins of American globalization and expansionism in the Spanish-American War. American involvement in the War of 1898, he argues, reflects many of the fundamental patterns of our national history - exploration and discovery, labor exploitation, violence, racism, class conflict, and concern for security - that have shaped America's course since the nineteenth century. Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization is the first work to identify the source of the United States' economic, political, and social policies abroad - and the actions that established it as the only remaining superpower.

Publishers Weekly

In contrast to the traditional globalization assertion that the world's "Heartland" lies somewhere in the Eurasian land mass, Schoonover, professor of history at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, places it in the Caribbean/Central American region that from 1492 to the present has acted as a bridge and a springboard for Europe's, then America's expansionist quest for Asian markets. The Spanish-American war of 1898, according to Schoonover, was neither an aberration nor a false path temporarily followed. It brought together most of the major themes of U.S. history: imperialism, militarism, labor exploitation, racism. Industrial technology increased production to a level where global distribution was the only way of sustaining the profits Americans had come to expect. For Schoonover, westward expansion was not a search for land and freedom, but a stage in opening America's way to the Pacific basin. The Caribbean region played a vital role in the process because it was the site for the isthmus canal that linked the U.S.-dominated North Atlantic to a Pacific region where during the first half of the 20th century, U.S. aims and policies were asserted by sophisticated combinations of economic, political, military and cultural pressure. Asian reactions were predictable: "suspicion, distrust, anger, and hatred," a legacy that Schoonover finds endures to the present. Schoonover acknowledges his particular intellectual debt to Walter LaFeber (who provides an introduction) for many of these ideas. His concise history of the U.S.'s early imperial maneuvering is scarcely comforting and should play a role in ongoing debates about current actions. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Book about: Condoleezza Rice or Haunted by Combat

Latin America in the World Econ P

Author: Frederick Stirton Weaver

Latin America in the World Economy considers the dual aspect of Latin American development: how external factors (phases of world capitalism since Columbus) interweave with internal factors (Latin American culture, politics, and social groups). Within his skillful approach, Weaver demonstrates how domestic social conflicts and power relations have consistently capitalized on changes in the international economy, while, conversely, engagement with the international economy has consistently constrained local struggles and patterns of change. With over half of the book dedicated to the "short" twentieth century (after 1930), Latin America in the World Economy is appropriate for courses in Latin American economic history, political economy, and development.

Booknews

Considers how external factors (the phases of world capitalism since Columbus) interweave with internal factors such as Latin American culture, politics, and social groups in Latin American development. With this text, Weaver (economics and history, Hampshire College) updates his article on capitalist development in South America originally published in Fall 1976. Over half of the text focuses on 1930 to the present. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

	List of Tables	ix
	Foreword	xi
	Preface	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xv
	List of Acronyms	xvii
	Map of Western Hemisphere	xix
1	The Changing World Economy: Introduction and Early History	1
	Some Preliminary Principles and Terms	2
	Tribute-Seeking Empires	4
	Mercantilism and Commercial Expansion, 1450-1750	5
	Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Colonial Latin America as an Uncertain Mercantile Project	13
2	Competitive Capitalist Industrialization, Free Trade Imperialism, and Latin American Independence, 1700-1850	25
	Competitive Capitalism: England	25
	Free Trade Imperialism	32
	Political Independence in Latin America	35
	Independent Spanish America in the World Market	44
3	Finance Capitalism, the New Imperialism, and Latin American Export Economies, 1850-1930	55
	Finance Capitalist Industralization: Germany	56
	Finance Capitalism and the "New Imperialism,"	61
	Latin America in the Era of the New Imperialism	66
4	Modern Times, Bretton Woods, and Transnational Corporations, 1920-1970s	91
	The Turbulent Beginnings of Modern Times in the United States	91
	The Structure of Modern Times in the 1950s and 1960s	96
	The International Economy, the Cold War, and Transnational Corporations	101
5	Import Substitution and Semi-Industrialization in Latin America, 1930-1970s	117
	Depression, War, and the Ascent of the State	117
	The Limits of Populism: Argentina Under Peron	125
	The Political Economy of Import-Substituting Industralization in Latin America	127
	Success, Failure, and Demise of Import-Substituting Industrialization	139
6	International Competition and the Dissolution of Modern Times	147
	The Crisis of U.S. Modern Times	147
	Beyond Modern Times	164
7	Debt, Democracy, and Uncertain Transformations: Latin America in a New World	169
	The Debt Crisis in Latin America	172
	Debt Leverage and Structural Adjustment	177
	Political Transitions	184
	Neoliberal Democracy	188
	The implementation of Neoliberal Reforms	197
	Beyond Neoliberalism	203
	References	211
	Index	241