Pitt Latin American
2 total works
This book presents the first comprehensive treatment of Anglo-American rivalry over Latin America in the late nineteenth century, who battled for economic and political influence in the region from the Civil War until 1895, when the Venezuelan boundary dispute came to a head and the Monroe Doctrine was finally recognized by the British. Yet author Joseph Smith posits that this was only an illusion of conflict, that the two major powers has shared objectives all along in the region.
In 1889 the Brazilian empire was overthrown by a military coup and a republic was declared. This dramatic event inaugurated a new awareness in the United States of its giant "sister republic" in South America. In this study of diplomatic relations, Joseph Smith aims to fill a significant gap in the literature and offers a case study of US policy in the hemisphere. It has long been axiomatic to regard the United States and Brazil as natural friends and allies. Yet Smith's research in American, British, and Brazilian archives shows that, in reality, diplomatic relations between the republics were characterized as much by conflict as by harmony. The goodwill and assistance of the United States proved valuable in helping to protect the infant republic from both internal and external threats, and Brazil's decision to enter World War I on the side of the Allies pleased the United States. But America's apparently irresistible political and economic advance in Brazil was persistently hampered by disagreements. Smith argues that the idea of an equal relationship always enjoyed much more currency in Brazil than in the United States.
He concludes that it was more than a useful pretence that served the ambitions and vanities of Brazil's ruling elite and provided the United States with a means of securing a cooperative instrument to divide and rule in Latin America. The underlying reality was that the two giants were truly unequal.
He concludes that it was more than a useful pretence that served the ambitions and vanities of Brazil's ruling elite and provided the United States with a means of securing a cooperative instrument to divide and rule in Latin America. The underlying reality was that the two giants were truly unequal.