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FDR's good neighbor policy: Sixty years of generally gentle chaos
Review Essays Brilliance and Bunk
in Latin
American
Studies
by Mark Falcoff
FDR’S Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Yearsof Generally Gentle Chaos. By Fredrick B. Pike. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. 394 pp. $34.95.) Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-L&in American Relations. By Peter Smith. (New York: Oxford University Press, 19%. 377 pp. $30.00; $16.95, paper.) i%e Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine. By Gaddis Smith. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994. 280 pp. $25.00.) The most telling statement ever made about Latin American studies is often attributed to the late McGeorge Bundy: “Second-rate subjects attract second-rate minds.” For all its unkindness, the assertion remains as true today as it was more than thirty years ago, when President John F. Kennedy’s Washington was scrambling to meet the challenge of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Even in those relatively exciting times, when Latin America was on the front page of every newspaper, there was little serious literature on the subject. Almost all the books published on Latin America during the 1950swere travelogues; if Kennedy had wished to inform himself on the real state of affairs in Cuba immediately prior to the revolution, probably the only serious treatise available at the time was Lowry Nelson’s Rural Cuba, a masterly work of sociology and economics that even then was ten years old. Today, no publishing season is complete without a cataract of monographs on every aspect of the region. One particular publishing house, Westview Press, acts as a kind of vacuum cleaner for doctoral dissertations on Latin America, which cover everything from aboriginal rights to women’s movements, from land tenure to labor economics. But while availability of texts is no longer a problem, quality is another matter. Other than university libraries with standing orders, who is expected to buy (or read) these works? The truth is that if President Bill Clinton perused such texts, he probably would not emerge significantly better informed about Latin America than his predecessor seven presidencies back. Mark Fak!off isa resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a member of the editorial board of orbis. His books include Small CounMes, Large Zssws (American Enterprise Institute, 1984) and Moakrn Chile, 1970-89 A Critical History (Transaction Publishers, 19@)>.
Winter
1997 I 119
in Latin
American
Studies
by Mark Falcoff
FDR’S Good Neighbor Policy: Sixty Yearsof Generally Gentle Chaos. By Fredrick B. Pike. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. 394 pp. $34.95.) Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-L&in American Relations. By Peter Smith. (New York: Oxford University Press, 19%. 377 pp. $30.00; $16.95, paper.) i%e Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine. By Gaddis Smith. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994. 280 pp. $25.00.) The most telling statement ever made about Latin American studies is often attributed to the late McGeorge Bundy: “Second-rate subjects attract second-rate minds.” For all its unkindness, the assertion remains as true today as it was more than thirty years ago, when President John F. Kennedy’s Washington was scrambling to meet the challenge of Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Even in those relatively exciting times, when Latin America was on the front page of every newspaper, there was little serious literature on the subject. Almost all the books published on Latin America during the 1950swere travelogues; if Kennedy had wished to inform himself on the real state of affairs in Cuba immediately prior to the revolution, probably the only serious treatise available at the time was Lowry Nelson’s Rural Cuba, a masterly work of sociology and economics that even then was ten years old. Today, no publishing season is complete without a cataract of monographs on every aspect of the region. One particular publishing house, Westview Press, acts as a kind of vacuum cleaner for doctoral dissertations on Latin America, which cover everything from aboriginal rights to women’s movements, from land tenure to labor economics. But while availability of texts is no longer a problem, quality is another matter. Other than university libraries with standing orders, who is expected to buy (or read) these works? The truth is that if President Bill Clinton perused such texts, he probably would not emerge significantly better informed about Latin America than his predecessor seven presidencies back. Mark Fak!off isa resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a member of the editorial board of orbis. His books include Small CounMes, Large Zssws (American Enterprise Institute, 1984) and Moakrn Chile, 1970-89 A Critical History (Transaction Publishers, 19@)>.
Winter
1997 I 119