Gunboat Democracy

Russell Crandall is associate professor of political science at Davidson College. He is the author of Driven by Drugs: U.S Policy Toward Colombia and co-editor of Mexico's Democracy at Work: Political and Economic Dynamics and The Andes in Focus: Security, Democracy, and Economic Reform.

• 1 Acknowledgements2 Introduction3 History of United States Intervention in Latin America4 Dominican Republic, 19655 Grenada, 19836 Panama, 19897 Conclusion8 Bibliography

Gunboat Democracy offers a much-needed corrective to the dominant view that U.S. foreign policy toward the Caribbean and Central America has been driven by nefarious motives, that U.S. imperialism has changed little since the 19th century, and that U.S. interventions have left these countries worse off. Russell Crandall demonstrates with these three cases that U.S. foreign policy has been largely based on security concerns, that it has evolved during the last century, and that its interventions have probably helped to promote democracy and stability. Provocative and insightful, the book's cases are first rate.