Latin America Between The Second World War And The Cold War

This volume aims to establish that the period between World War II and the beginning of the Cold War (1944-5 to 1947-8) represents an important conjuncture in the political and social history of Latin America in the twentieth century. The volume contains an Introduction and a Conclusion by the editors and case studies of eleven of the twenty Latin American republics. Despite differences of political regime and different levels of economic and social development there are striking similarities in the experiences of the majority of the Latin American republics in this period. For most of Latin America it can be divided into two phases. The first, coinciding with the Allied victory in the Second World War, was characterized by three distinct but interrelated phenomena: democratization; a shift to the Left, both Communist and non-Communist; and unprecedented labor militancy. In the second phase, coinciding with the onset of the Cold War and completed almost everywhere by 1948, labor was disciplined by the State and in many cases excluded from politics; communist parties suffered proscription and severe repression; reformist, "progressive" parties moved to the right; the democratic advance was for the most part contained, and in some cases reversed.

This volume aims to establish that the period between World War II and the beginning of the Cold War (1944-5 to 1947-8) represents an important conjuncture in the political and social history of Latin America in the twentieth century. The volume contains an Introduction and a Conclusion by the editors and case studies of eleven of the twenty Latin American republics. Despite differences of political regime and different levels of economic and social development there are striking similarities in the experiences of the majority of the Latin American republics in this period. For most of Latin America it can be divided into two phases. The first, coinciding with the Allied victory in the Second World War, was characterized by three distinct but interrelated phenomena: democratization; a shift to the Left, both Communist and non-Communist; and unprecedented labor militancy. In the second phase, coinciding with the onset of the Cold War and completed almost everywhere by 1948, labor was disciplined by the State and in many cases excluded from politics; communist parties suffered proscription and severe repression; reformist, "progressive" parties moved to the right; the democratic advance was for the most part contained, and in some cases reversed.

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, and offers insights for better understanding the region's past, as well as its possible futures, challenging 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.

DIVReexamines the Cold War in Latin America by shifting the focus away from superpower decision-making and exploring the many ways in which Latin American leaders and ordinary people used, manipulated, shaped, and were victimized by the Cold War./div

While not commonly centered in the Cold War story, Latin America was intensely affected by that historic conflict. In this book, available for the first time in English, Vanni Pettina makes sense of the region's diverse, complex political experiences of the Cold War era. Cross-fertilized by Latin American and Anglophone historiography, his account shifts from an overemphasis on U.S. interventions toward a comprehensive Latin American perspective. Connecting Cold War events to the region's political polarizations, revolutionary mobilizations, draconian state repression, and brutal violence in almost every sphere, Pettina demonstrates that Latin America's Cold War was rarely cold. In the midst of the tumult, some countries showed resilience and capacity to bend the disruptive dynamics to their advantage. Mexico, for example, drew on a mix of nationalism and anticommunism, aided by the United States, to achieve strong economic growth and political stability. Cuba, in contrast, used Soviet protection to shield its revolution from the United States and to strengthen its capacity to project power in Latin America and beyond. Interweaving global and local developments along an insightful analytical frame, Pettina reveals the distinct consequences of the Cold War in the Western Hemisphere.

For Latin America, the Cold War was anything but cold. Nor was it the so-called “long peace” afforded the world’s superpowers by their nuclear standoff. In this book, the first to take an international perspective on the postwar decades in the region, Hal Brands sets out to explain what exactly happened in Latin America during the Cold War, and why it was so traumatic. Tracing the tumultuous course of regional affairs from the late 1940s through the early 1990s, Latin America’s Cold War delves into the myriad crises and turning points of the period—the Cuban revolution and its aftermath; the recurring cycles of insurgency and counter-insurgency; the emergence of currents like the National Security Doctrine, liberation theology, and dependency theory; the rise and demise of a hemispheric diplomatic challenge to U.S. hegemony in the 1970s; the conflagration that engulfed Central America from the Nicaraguan revolution onward; and the democratic and economic reforms of the 1980s. Most important, the book chronicles these events in a way that is both multinational and multilayered, weaving the experiences of a diverse cast of characters into an understanding of how global, regional, and local influences interacted to shape Cold War crises in Latin America. Ultimately, Brands exposes Latin America’s Cold War as not a single conflict, but rather a series of overlapping political, social, geostrategic, and ideological struggles whose repercussions can be felt to this day.

Kapitler: Latin America on the Eve of the Second World War; The Era of Neutrality; From Neutrality to War; South of the Equator; Unity or Unanimity.