The Good Neighbor: How the United States Wrote the History of Central America and the Caribbean

by George Black

Looks at the history of U.S. relations with Central America, discusses the political situation, and assesses U.S. foreign policy

Genres: History

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 1988

Reviews

[Steven Dunlap · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent primer on the history of the United States' domination over Central and South America. By no means comprehensive, reading this book will at least provide you with a start. Black provides properly documented information that makes clear the many ways that the U.S. has intervened in other countries in this hemisphere. This additional information that most of us do not learn in school overturns many of the numerous falsehoods that continue to circulate in popular culture and political rhetoric.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read. The author makses a very good case against the United States concerning Central American and caribbean foreign policy. While very well supported, I did find fault with the major premise of the last half of the book and that is that the United States was hypersensitive to Soviet intervention in Central America and the Caribbean during the Cold War when there was probably no, or very little, involvement from the Soviets. In my opinion, this is flawed reasoning because, in the context of the Cold War, a socialist country on the rise near the United States would have been as equally inviting to the Soviets as it was dreadfully feared by the United States. In the Cold War battlefield for hearts and minds as well as strategic position, the region was a possible gold mine for the Soviets and would have been looked at very seriously for possilble alliances as was evidenced in Cuba.
Overall, the book was very good and i would highly recommend it.