Empire and Dissent

Since the early nineteenth century, the United States has repeatedly intervened in the affairs of Latin American nations to pursue its own interests and to “protect” those countries from other imperial powers or from internal “threats.” The resentment and opposition generated by the encroachment of U.S. power has been evident in the recurrent attempts of Latin American nations to pull away from U.S. dominance and in the frequent appearance of popular discontent and unrest directed against imperialist U.S. policies. In Empire and Dissent, senior Latin Americanists explore the interplay between various dimensions of imperial power and the resulting dissent and resistance.Several essays provide historical perspective on contemporary U.S.–hemispheric relations. These include an analysis of the nature and dynamics of imperial domination, an assessment of financial relations between the United States and Latin America since the end of World War II, an account of Native American resistance to colonialism, and a consideration of the British government’s decision to abolish slavery in its colonies. Other essays focus on present-day conflicts in the Americas, highlighting various modes of domination and dissent, resistance and accommodation. Examining southern Mexico’s Zapatista movement, one contributor discusses dissent in the era of globalization. Other contributors investigate the surprisingly conventional economic policies of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Argentina’s recovery from its massive 2001 debt default; the role of coca markets in the election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales; and the possibilities for extensive social change in Venezuela. A readers’ guide offers a timeline of key events from 1823 through 2007, along with a list of important individuals, institutions, and places.Contributors: Daniel A. Cieza, Gregory Evans Dowd, Steve Ellner, Neil Harvey, Alan Knight, Carlos Marichal, John Richard Oldfield, Silvia Rivera, Fred Rosen, Jeffrey W. Rubin

“Empire and Dissent is uniformly informative, insightful, and often provocative in the best of senses. This outstanding collection pairs a conceptually innovative and historiographically superior set of essays on empire in the Americas (Spanish, British, and United States) with country-specific chapters on resistance, dissent, and negotiation in contemporary Latin America. These insightful chapters reach beyond traditional course material on Latin American history and politics to address questions of globalization, social movements, and the conceptualization of resistance in an era of U.S. hegemonic power.”—Steven Volk, Oberlin College, “You can’t have one without the other: empire and dissent have defined American politics for nearly two centuries, producing, in Latin America, an enduring social democracy and, in the United States, an equally persistent evangelical liberalism. Fred Rosen’s knowledge of Latin American politics is formidable, and in this edited collection of essays he has given us an indispensable guide to a critical topic.”—Greg Grandin, author of Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism

Fred Rosen is an independent journalist and political economist based in New York and Mexico City. He is a contributing editor to the NACLA Report on the Americas, a political columnist for the Mexico edition of The Miami Herald, and a co-editor of Latin America after Neoliberalism: Turning the Tide in the Twenty-first Century?