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November 13 |
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A Hemisphere in Transition |
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George Kennan, the first head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. His caustic view of Latin America--one perhaps shared by many US policymakers but rarely articulated--is one of the documents that we'll be reading for today's class. |
| The period between 1944 and 1948 was unusual in Latin American history: democratic revolutions occurred in Cuba, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela, and Brazil. To what extent were these developments a product of US initiatives, either ideologically or strategically? That question is the focus of today's class. |
READING:
Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope, pp. 85-133, for which these reading notes will be available Monday night.
DOCUMENTS:
Kennan on the future role of Latin America in world politics (1947)