Summary Of Empire's Workshop By Greg Grandin

The United States has influenced many nations in the world throughout history. Some of the ways the U.S. has been able to dominate poor countries are with military action and corporate activities that allowed the United States to influence their governments. Since the United States extends its power with the previously mentioned methods, it is recognized as an imperialist nation. The United States has specifically demonstrated imperialistic forces in Latin America. The effects that the United States’ imperialism had on Latin American economies and politics were negative since it brought violence and caused the poor to struggle even more. When the United Sates government did not like policies that Latin American presidents were creating, they would take military actions to force American ideologies into Latin American countries’ governments by installing puppets into their governments. Generally, these countries would have flourished economically without the United States, but since the U.S. became involved with the countries’ policies, their economies have weakened because the U.S. wants the benefits of controlling countries’ resources without being responsible for the people who reside there. This pattern of the United States’ imperialistic behavior has been demonstrated many times in Latin America.

The book, Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer, is organized by chapters and parts. It begins with the introduction, and then it flows into the following parts: The Imperial Era, Covert Action, and Invasions. After these parts are the notes, bibliography, acknowledgments, and index. The book also features pictures of the people and places that are spoken of within it. The book is targeted at a mature, college-aged, or even older, audience, while remaining easy to read, and its tone is not at all tense for the subject portrayed. Overthrow is written as a historical recountal of America’s overthrow of foreign governments, including those of Hawaii, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Iraq, etc. The book uses these examples to argue that a strong nation strikes against a weaker one because “it seeks to impose its ideology, increase its power, or gain control of valuable resources.” The author of Overthrow did a phenomenal job of proving his thesis statement through his examples and making the book suitable for the audience.

While one cannot simply deny America’s colonialist presuppositions in involving itself with the war, it is clear that the main driving force and motivation into the war was founded on the development of America 's national identity that held the nation as being just, democratic and humane.4 As such, America had a duty to protect the oppressed regardless of their nationality and race. America 's victory over Spain, and the restoration of peace among the Cuban people was an affirmation that America was a democratic and just nation. To a large extend, this victory placed America in the center of global power and control.

Howard Jones who is the author of, Crucible of Power, argues that the U.S. followed a foreign policy of independent internationalism to secure foreign markets through peaceful means and this can be seen in Latin America. Woodrow Wilson promised not to seek territorial acquisitions to the South, but would not renounce the spread of U.S. influence through economic means and this lead to the U.S. having influence in 75 percent of Latin American during the 1920s. To spread economic influence throughout Latin America the U.S. insisted it would be through peaceful policies, but continued the use of military interventionism in countries like the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua until the middle of the 1920 's. This is also an example which shows that the U.S. did not pursue an isolationist foreign policy and wanted to go out in the world and expand its markets.

Exceptionalism, Expansionism, and Isolationism Throughout the United States’ history three key values has steered our foreign policy; these include exceptionalism, isolationism, and expansionism. These three connected principles fight against American morals and obligation but helped the United States become a superpower. In this paper, I will explain these three forces and how they interconnect, argue the belief that they helped shape America as a supreme power, and look back on these principles and how they led to the Mexican- American War, and provide a contemporary example.

While there is no doubt that the Spanish-American War ushered the United States into imperialism there is a debate about the United States before the war. Traditionalists argue that the United States was largely isolationist before the Spanish-American War while revisionists, many of whom gained traction in the 1960s during widespread protest to the Vietnam War, argue that the United States has always been this imperialistic, even during the 19th century. This essay will examine whether foreign policy in the 19th century was largely isolationist with the Spanish-American war marking a significant shift in foreign policy, as the traditionalists maintain, or Spanish-American war

Between 1870-1900, the European scramble for empire sparked a new attitude for Americas view on the expansion. The United States sought to influence and control other parts of the world in order to protect its national interests. The fear of the country being closed out in the struggle for global markets and raw materials and profits from foreign sales motivated the American quest for global influence. "Republican senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, claiming that the "great nations" were seizing "the waste areas of the world", advised that "the United States must not fall out of the line of march" because "civilization and the advancement of the [Anglo-Saxon] race" were at stake" (Norton, Mary Beth. Chapter 19: The Quest for Empire

In the book The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, author Greg Grandin traces Guatemala’s evolutionary period from the late 19th century to the early 1980s. What he dubs as ‘the last colonial massacre,’ the Panzós Massacre of 1978 was the mass murder by the Guatamalan army of 35 Q’echi-Mayan men, women and children who had gathered in the town square demanding democractic representation, land reform and higher wages. Outrage over this massacre led many Guatemalan peasants to join the communist Guerilla Army of the Poor (EGP) which prompted violence and repression by the US backed right-wing government. Grandin’s thesis is that Cold War terror unleashed or excused by the United States, weakened the advancement of democracy

Reading the book Harvest of Empire by Juan Gonzalez, has been very informative to me and has changed my perspective on U.S. foreign policy. Each account of the families from the different Latino countries has similar underlying trends that can be found because of the U.S. involvement in their countries. Every single instance of U.S. involvement in Latin American countries seems to evolve around the idea of greed and profit. The U.S. is like a business that only cares about the income of money and not about the morality of their actions. On top of all the injustice the U.S. government has employed, they don’t bother to own up to their mistakes and they tend to sweep their involvement under the rug. For example, the Iran-Contra scandal mentioned in the book of the Reagan administration was the result of using drug money from Iran to buy weapons for the Nicaraguan contra rebels against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. It infuriates me that the U.S. would support a dictator that suppresses the rights of its citizens and all the while they want to take down the established, popular Sandinista government. The U.S. wants to do all this so that the new government will support U.S. interests in Nicaragua. When the scandal was uncovered, all Reagan could say was “I’m sorry” and “It won’t happen again” even though our involvement had the result of many lives lost in that war/rebellion. Unfortunately, this theme did not only occur in Nicaragua

U.S. history is a key structural determinant of why Latinos have faced hardship, but now making up over 33% of the nation’s population have found their voice. In the documentary, Harvest of Empire Journalist and author of the book Juan Gonzalez, “Harvest of Empire” discusses the controversial issue in America of Latino immigration. He examines U.S. intervention in each of the Latin countries which in turn caused them to migrate to North America. “People in the U.S. have no idea why we come to this country. No idea. And if they do, it’s probably the wrong one” says Mariana Cabrera a Guatemalan immigrant (Harvest, 18:51). Her country of Guatemala had many changes going on in terms of government structure. In 1951 Jacobo Arbenz was appointed as President of Guatemala and wanted to help alleviate poverty in the country by land reform. According the documentary 2% of the owners had control of the land and 75% were in the hands of the United Fruit Company. The United Fruit Company was controlled by America and used the Guatemalan land to create an American powerhouse. With Arbenz in rule, Guatemalan government values did not match those of

While the Cold War does not mark a significant distinction from US involvement in Latin America pre-Cold War, the inclusion of ideology in US foreign policy decisions did mark a change in attitudes and focus. While US policy can be described as rational to a certain point, the Cuban dilemma caused an irrational fear in US foreign policy makers to avoid a second-Cuba. The fear of a “second Cuba” can be seen in the various interventions by the US in Latin America during this period.

There are three components of the US empire in Latin America. These components are punitive idealism, free market absolutism, and right-wing Christian mobilization. Punitive idealism justifies a hostile diplomacy in order to advance “freedom.” America has the right to do whatever they needed to do in order to achieve their goal. It was believed that “if America acted with moral certainty to defend its national interests, the consequence would, by extension, be beneficial for the rest of the world.” (78). No matter how America acted, as long as they had their own objectives in mind, they would help the rest of the world. There were many at home who did not see eye to eye with Washington. In recent events, America could be seen in two ways. As

Located on the Pacific Coastline, El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, and the most populated. The United States of America foreign policy on El Salvador is best explained by President Obama’s approach on Latin America where the United States is focused on economic growth and equality, energy and climate control, and regional and citizen security (Foreign Policy, 2012). This is best explained using the international level of analysis and neo-liberalism where the global structure and economic interdependence provides the foundation of America’s foreign policy. To ensure that one can see the transparency in United States methodology I will provide the history of El Salvador, the creation of United States interest in El

Galeano portrays this moment in Latin American history as the instant U.S investors took control over the industries. He details the dangers they went through when producing one item to export for the benefit of foreigners, and how they later imported the processed goods from those same foreign countries, injecting money only overseas. The fact that Latin America needed imports to survive initiated the imperial link the U.S has upon it. As stated by Galeano, “The growing dependence on foreign supplies produces the growing identification of the interest of U.S. capitalists operating in Latin America with U.S. national security”11, bluntly showing the relationship between the United States and Latin America. “With petroleum, as with coffee or meat, rich countries profit more from the work of consuming it than do poor countries from the work of producing it”12. Because profit was not being retained in the Latin American countries, nationalization of the industries became of importance. The United States offered intervention in order to protect everyone’s interests with the proposal of free trade, but this was no more than another manipulation to continue having power over Latin America and its resources: “Latin America’s big ports, through which the wealth of its soil and subsoil passed en route to distant centers of power, were being built as instruments of the conquest and domination of the countries to which they belonged, and as conduits

The lectures in class this week and the article “10 of the Most Lethal CIA Interventions in Latin America” by Olivier Acuña has opened my eyes to the U.S.’s international political connections. The U.S. has proved throughout history to be self serving and has proven to intervene in nations that will lead to its own economic and political advantages. I find it unfortunate that the CIA and American government tries to pride itself on our democratic system, but will support corrupt dictators and absolute rulers