Inevitable Revolutions: United States in Central America [Paperback]

I read this book as part of a Political Science course I took, "The Politics of Revolution". I found this work both highly enjoyable and informative. The author does and excellent job of analyzing American foreign policy towards the region of central america as a whole, and then breaking it down and reviewing US involvement in each of the countries. Whether this book has a "politcal agenda" or not (I don't see how any book on history or political science could not) is not the issue. The author points out mistakes in US foreign policy, as well as its ambiguities and paradoxes. I also found the book to be well written and easy to read, I found myself reading 100 pages one night without even putting the book down. Many of my classmates however, found the book to be difficult to read, so that must be taken into account as well. But, for me, I found the book to be an excellent one-volume work on the region and US involement there in the 20th century, and the results of such involvement. It should not be so neatly wrapped up and generalized as being "left-wing presentist bias" as some people seem to do.

In Inevitable Revolutions, Walter LaFeber paints a thorough picture of United States involvement in Central America. It is a sordid picture. Tracing back to the mid-19th century, LaFeber pinpoints the moments when the U. S. government began carving out its sphere of influence in this poor region. He comprehensively brings his analysis into the 20th century with corporations such as United Fruit and the continuing utilization and expansion of the Monroe Doctrine. This concept was continually shaped in so many various ways that it became unrecognizable from its original form. Of course the dominating force in Central America in the middle and later parts of this century was anti-communism. LaFeber justly attacks characters such as the Dulles brothers, who selfishly pursued their own agenda at the expense of the people in the region. Support for dictators and military-oligarchial complexes play a major part of this century's troubles in Central America. The Somozas in Nicaragua benefitted from their close relationships with US lawmakers and politicians. Somoza (all three of them) made our politicians feel comfortable, they spoke English, and they went to our universities, they also carefully guarded our institutions and corporations. This is really a sad history, the bottom line is that scores of people in these countries never benefitted from the US-Central American relationship. The Reagan era proved to be worse than any other eras, the revolutions and their after effects finally came to fruition. LaFeber shows that if the Reagan administration had not looked to Central America as a zealot's playground, there could have been measurable progress. A sordid tale, indeed.

Written by a distinguished historian of American foreign relations, Inevitable Revolutions is a well written and well documented history of USA policy towards Central America from the end of the 19th century to the Reagan/Bush 1 period. Lafeber provides not only the basic narrative but a nice analysis of the basic structural features of US-Central American relations. The fundamental structural feature that emerges at the end of the 19th century is essentially an colonial one. The Central American nations are the site of considerable US investment and their role in the US economy is to provide primary products for the US market and markets for US industries. In addition, the Central American nations (like several Caribbean nations also subject to US domination) are close to crucial sea lanes, a fact enhanced by the construction of the Panama canal. To guarantee political and economic stability, the US government underwrites the power of local oligarchies. In the first decades of the 20th century, this involves numerous direct military interventions. By the 30s, however, US power rested on indirect rule via indigeous governments, usually oppressive military regimes like that of the Somoza family, ruling in tandem with a small upper class. The nature of the economic relationship between the US and the central American nations, and continued population growth, resulted in progressive impoverishment of the majority of people in central American. The ultimate result is that political and social change are possible only via violent political revolutions, either coups to transfer power within the ruling elites, or actual attempts at real social revolutions aimed at the reconstruction of society. Since the USA was the guarantor of the status quo, the attempts at actual revolution, or even relatively moderate levels of reform within these societies, were intrinsically anti-American.

Added to this combustible mixture were the anxieties of the Cold War with the lamentable tendency of Washington policy makers to assume all attacks on the status quo as manifestations of Soviet revolutionary policy. This led to increased military support for almost Central American states, often transforming the primitive militaries of these natiions into more professional but frequently independent and highly destructive political forces. Even the well intentioned efforts to promote economic growth under the Kennedy administration tended to exagerrate existing social inequalities and promote social conflict. This situation results in the inevitable revolutions of Lafeber's title.

Lafeber devotes the last 2 chapters to an incisive and scathing description and analysis of the Reagan/Bush years. This is a sad tale of ideological blindness, simplistic belief in the value of military power, overemphasis on Presidential executive power, and simple stupidity. As Lefeber is careful to point out, US actions had the effect of markedly exacerbating the conflicts in Central America. The consequences were horrible. In El Salvador in the early 1980s, our client government may have been responsible for as many as 50,000 deaths. Since El Salvador had a population of about 4.5 million, this would be the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of deaths in the USA.

As the events regarding the CAFTA negotiations appear to demonstrate, its not clear that the fundamentals of the US - Central American relationship have changed greatly.