Anthony P. Maingot is professor of sociology at Florida International University and is the editor of Hemisphere, a magazine of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at FIU.

• Part 1 The United States enters the Caribbean: geopolitics and racial destiny - 1823-1903; geopolitics and the perceived duties of the policeman - 1903-1935; reinforcing perceptions - u-boats and fifth columns in World War II. Part 2 The Marxist challenge and US responses: from anti-fascism to anti-communism - Costa Rica and British Guiana; the CIA unleashed - containing communism in Guatemala and Cuba; the Caribbean plays the Cuban card - the US response. Part 3 Problems of the modern Caribbean: threats to social and national security - the internationalization of corruption and violence; the "offshore" development strategy - is it for everyone?; migration and development - all roads lead north; Haiti - intractable problems, shifting commitments - challenges of sovereign consent in US-Caribbean relations.