The Most Dangerous Area in the World

The Most Dangerous Area in the World
Author: Stephen G. Rabe
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2014-06-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1469617366

In March 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the formation of the Alliance for Progress, a program dedicated to creating prosperous, socially just, democratic societies throughout Latin America. Over the next few years, the United States spent nearly $20 billion in pursuit of the Alliance's goals, but Latin American economies barely grew, Latin American societies remained inequitable, and sixteen extraconstitutional changes of government rocked the region. In this close, critical analysis, Stephen Rabe explains why Kennedy's grand plan for Latin America proved such a signal policy failure. Drawing on recently declassified materials, Rabe investigates the nature of Kennedy's intense anti-Communist crusade and explores the convictions that drove him to fight the Cold War throughout the Caribbean and Latin America--a region he repeatedly referred to as "the most dangerous area in the world." As Rabe acknowledges, Kennedy remains popular in the United States and Latin America, in part for the noble purposes behind the Alliance for Progress. But an unwavering determination to wage Cold War led Kennedy to compromise, even mutilate, those grand goals.

Utopia Unarmed

Utopia Unarmed
Author: Jorge G. Castañeda
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 516
Release: 1994-08-02
Genre: History
ISBN:

Tells the story behind Latin America's failed leftist movements of the past thirty years and examines the position of the left in Latin American politics today.

Artists on the Left

Artists on the Left
Author: Andrew Hemingway
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780300092202

Examination of the relation between visual artists and the American communist movement in the first half of the twentieth century, from the rise in prestige of the party during the Great Depression to its decline in the 1950s. Account of how left-wing artists responded to the party's various policy shifts: the communist party exerted a powerful force in American culture.

Cuba

Cuba
Author: Andres Suarez
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : M.I.T. Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1967
Genre: Communism
ISBN: 9780262190374

The Americano

The Americano
Author: Aran Shetterly
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2007-08-10
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1565128524

"Why do I fight here in this land so foreign to my own? Why did I come here far from my home and family?...Is it because I seek adventure? No...I am here because I believe that the most important thing for free men to do is to protect the freedom of others." —William Morgan, in a letter to Herbert Matthews at the New York Times When William Morgan was twenty-two years old, he was working as a high school janitor in Toledo Ohio. Seven years later, in 1958, he walked into a Rebel camp in the Cuban Jungle to join the revolutionaries in their fight to overthrow the corrupt Cuban president, Fulgencio Batista. They were wary of the broad-shouldered, blond-haired, blue-eyed americano but Morgan's dedication and passion, his military skill and charisma, led him to become a chief comandante in Castro's army—he was the only foreigner to hold such a rank, with the exception of Che Guevera. Vicious battles in the jungles were followed by victorious revelry in the cities. Morgan married a Cuban beauty. He single-handedly thwarted the Dominican Republic's attempt to overthrow Castro. And he was chosen to work with Castro and other high ranking Rebels to improve the quality of life for all people. This man who had lived under the radar in America was now a Cuban hero on the watch lists of several governments, all of whom wondered whose side he was really on. It all ended in 1961, when, at age thirty-two, Morgan was executed by firing squad, at the hands of Fidel Castro. Journalist Aran Shetterly takes us back to an era when democracy could have flourished in Cuba. He interviewed Morgan's friends and family and former Cuban Rebels, and examined FBI and CIA documents in search of the truth. What emerged was the true story of a young man who had never fit in but finally found his place in the world by fighting another country's war.

Latin America and the Global Cold War

Latin America and the Global Cold War
Author: Thomas C. Field Jr.
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2020-04-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1469655705

Latin America and the Global Cold War analyzes more than a dozen of Latin America's forgotten encounters with Africa, Asia, and the Communist world, and by placing the region in meaningful dialogue with the wider Global South, this volume produces the first truly global history of contemporary Latin America. It uncovers a multitude of overlapping and sometimes conflicting iterations of Third Worldist movements in Latin America, offers insights for better understanding the region's past and possible futures, and challenges us to consider how the Global Cold War continues to inform Latin America's ongoing political struggles. Contributors: Miguel Serra Coelho, Thomas C. Field Jr., Sarah Foss, Michelle Getchell, Eric Gettig, Alan McPherson, Stella Krepp, Eline van Ommen, Eugenia Palieraki, Vanni Pettina, Tobias Rupprecht, David M. K. Sheinin, Christy Thornton, Miriam Elizabeth Villanueva, and Odd Arne Westad.