Thomas F. O'Brien

Interventions, Conventional and Unconventional: Current Scholarship on Inter-American Relations

Gunboat Democracy: U.S. Interventions in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama. By Russell Crandall. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006. Pp. 254.

Chilean Elites and Foreign Investors: Chilean Nitrate Policy, 1880–82

28.95 paper. Secret History: The CIAs Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954, 2nd ed. By Nick Cullather. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. Pp. 176.

The Revolutionary Mission: American Enterprise in Latin America, 1900-1945.

17.95 paper. Confronting the American Dream: Nicaragua under U.S. Imperial Rule. By Michel Gobat. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Pp. 374.

“Rich beyond the Dreams of Avarice”: The Guggenheims in Chile

23.95 paper. Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America. By J. Patrice McSherry. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Pp. 285.

America, United States of: 2. Overseas empire

32.95 paper. Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation. By Harvey R. Neptune. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Pp. 274.

Brenda Elsey. Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile.

21.95 paper. Visions of Solidarity: U.S. Peace Activists in Nicaragua from War to Womens Activism and Globalization. By Clare Weber. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 162.

Darlene J. Sadlier, Americans All: Good Neighbor Cultural Diplomacy in World War II (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2012), pp. xii+251,

20.95 paper.

55.00, hb.

Chiles seizure of Peru and Bolivias nitrate regions during the War of the Pacific (1879-83) opened a new and unprecedented era of prosperity for the Chilean economy. During the next forty years the export duty on nitrates fuelled a rapid increase in government revenues, and the entire domestic economy benefited from the development of the industry. Yet the incorporation of the nitrate industry into the national economy also appeared to signal a decline in the dynamism of the Chilean economic elite. Despite the dominant role which Chilean entrepreneurs had played in the development of the national economy prior to the war, 69 per cent of the nitrate industry was in British hands by i890.1 In an effort to explain this puzzling phenomenon, scholars have repeatedly pointed to the Chilean Governments nitrate policy between i880 and I882. During that period the Chilean executive dismantled the nitrate monopoly of the Peruvian State, and the Chilean legislature imposed a nitrate duty which seriously damaged the Chilean controlled portion of the industry. Traditionally two explanations have been offered for these momentous decisions. The first argues that Chiles leaders, preoccupied with the conduct of a great war, made hasty and poorly informed decisions. The second reasons that Chilean statesmen, trained in the theories of laissez-faire economies, were repelled by the idea of State intervention in such a vital industry.2 The present study offers a reassessment of the factors which determined Chilean nitrate policy in this period.

Tanya Harmer , Allende's Chile and the Inter-American Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), pp. xvi + 375,

Part I. Merchant Republic to Corporate Empire: 1. Merchant republic to corporate empire Part II. Marines and Cultural Revolution in Central America: 2. Liberal revolution and corporate culture 3. Nicaragua 4. Honduras Part III. Peru: 5. The alliance for modernization 6. Resistance communities Part IV. Chile: 7. Salitreras and socialism Part V. Sugar and Power in Cuba: 8. Sugar and power 9. Revolution and reaction Part VI. Patriotism and Capitalism: 10. The Americanization of the Mexican 11. Nationalism and capitalism.