From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era (The United States in the World) - Softcover

Field, Thomas C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501713418 ISBN 13: 9781501713415

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2018

Synopsis

During the most idealistic years of John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress development program, Bolivia was the highest per capita recipient of U.S. foreign aid in Latin America. Nonetheless, Washington’s modernization programs in early 1960s Bolivia ended up on a collision course with important sectors of the country’s civil society, including radical workers, rebellious students, and a plethora of rightwing and leftwing political parties. In From Development to Dictatorship, Thomas C. Field Jr. reconstructs the untold story of USAID’s first years in Bolivia, including the country’s 1964 military coup d’état.

Field draws heavily on local sources to demonstrate that Bolivia’s turn toward anticommunist, development-oriented dictatorship was the logical and practical culmination of the military-led modernization paradigm that provided the liberal underpinnings of Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. In the process, the book explores several underappreciated aspects of Cold War liberal internationalism: the tendency of "development" to encourage authoritarian solutions to political unrest, the connection between modernization theories and the rise of Third World armed forces, and the intimacy between USAID and CIA covert operations. At the same time, the book challenges the conventional dichotomy between ideology and strategy in international politics, and it engages with a growing literature on development as a key rubric for understanding the interconnected processes of decolonization and the Cold War.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas C. Field Jr. is Assistant Professor of Global Security and Intelligence Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Review

"This outstanding book serves as a model for international history. Thomas C. Field Jr. displays a remarkable knowledge of Bolivian history and culture. He further demonstrates that bilateral relations are complex and that generalizations about inter-American relations are often undermined when scholars conduct case studies that are thoroughly grounded in archival sources in both the United States and individual Latin American countries."

(Stephen G. Rabe, Ashbel Smith Chair of History, University of Texas at Dallas, author of The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America)

"From Development to Dictatorship is impressively researched and clearly written and makes significant contributions to the history of Bolivia and U.S. foreign relations in the Kennedy era. Thomas C. Field Jr.'s detailed coverage of this period of Bolivian-U.S. relations sheds light on the direction the Bolivian military took; the role of developmental ideology in Bolivia's drift toward militarism; the influence of the United States in shaping Bolivia's internal political processes; and the ways that the developmental goals of the Alliance for Progress were intimately connected to the anticommunist, militarist, and authoritarian themes of Kennedy/Johnson policies. This is a very strong addition to the literature and our understanding of why Bolivia's revolution ended as it did."

(Kenneth D. Lehman, Squires Professor of History, Hampden-Sydney College, author of Bolivia and the United States: A Limited Partnership)

"Thomas Field's new book on the Alliance for Progress in Bolivia demonstrates just how comfortable America's Cold War foreign policy establishment was with dictatorship as its preferred method of rule in Latin America. Dictatorship and development became the twin pillars of the Alliance for Progress, Field's important book demonstrates. These sorts of historical narratives are necessary for modern readers to understand the roots of American foreign policy problems today."

(Erik Loomis, author of Out of Sight: The Long and Disturbing Story of Corporations Outsourcing Catastrophe, on the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog)

"From Development to Dictatorship will have an influence on more than our understanding of the land that beguiled Che Guevara. The product of remarkable interviews and of deft multi-archive international history, his intricate reconstruction of the Bolivian revolutionary scene in the early 1960s sets a high standard for reaching conclusions about the effect of U.S.-led development in any country at any time. Whether you believe that the 'Best and the Brightest' championed development in the 'Third World' as an act of enlightened self-interest or because of naked imperialism, this book absorbs your attention and makes you reconsider one of the defining impulses of the Kennedy era."

(Timothy Naftalico, author of "One Hell of a Gamble")

"Thomas Field has written a fascinating, original, and impeccably documented book with marked narrative suspense."

(Carlos Mesa, Former Bolivian President)

"In From Development to Dictatorship, Thomas C. Field Jr. probes intriguing and important questions about the Alliance for Progress. Field's most impressive archival research in the United States, Bolivia, Great Britain, and France yields magnificent results by providing an exceptionally clear understanding of the actual goals and workings of the Alliance."

(Mark Gilderhus, LBJ Chair of HistoryretiredTexas Christian University, author of The Second Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations since 1889)

"A devastating (and accurate, I would conclude) analysis of U.S./Paz Estenssoro top-down, militaristic-authoritarian development policy. This book is extremely well-researched (the use of interviews and international archives in particular), well-argued, and well-written. Students of Latin American history, development studies, and U.S. foreign relations will benefit from reading this book."

(James F. Siekmeier, author of The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to the Present, H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews)

About this edition

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1501713418
• ISBN 13: 9781501713415
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296