A World Safe for Capitalism - Hardcover

Veeser, Cyrus

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0231125860 ISBN 13: 9780231125864

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2002

Synopsis

This award-winning book provides a unique window on how America began to intervene in world affairs. In exploring what might be called the prehistory of Dollar Diplomacy, Cyrus Veeser brings together developments in New York, Washington, Santo Domingo, Brussels, and London. Theodore Roosevelt plays a leading role in the story as do State Department officials, Caribbean rulers, Democratic party leaders, bankers, economists, international lawyers, sugar planters, and European bondholders, among others.

The book recounts a little-known incident: the takeover by the Santo Domingo Improvement Company (SDIC) of the foreign debt, national railroad, and national bank of the Dominican Republic. The inevitable conflict between private interest and public policy led President Roosevelt to launch a sweeping new policy that became known as the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The corollary gave the U. S. the right to intervene anywhere in Latin American that "wrongdoing or impotence" (in T. R.'s words) threatened "civilized society." The "wrongdoer" in this case was the SDIC. Imposing government control over corporations was launched and became a hallmark of domestic policy. By proposing an economic remedy to a political problem, the book anticipates policies embodied in the Marshall Plan, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.

About this title

About the Author

Cyrus Veeser is associate professor of history at Bentley College. He won the Bancroft Dissertation Prize for the work on which this volume is based.
Cyrus Veeser, an assistant professor of history at Bentley College, won the Bancroft Dissertation Prize for the work on which this volume is based. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Based on Veeser's Bancroft Dissertation Prize-winning thesis, this work examines a little-known but important event in the history of U.S. foreign policy. During the early 1890s, the Dominican Republic's finances were controlled by a Dutch company to insure payment of the country's foreign debt. In 1892, a small group of American politicians and financiers formed the Santo Domingo Improvement Society and purchased the right to manage the country's finances. The U.S. government supported the society as a cheap means of protecting American economic and political interests. However, Dominican dictator Ulises Heureaux's exploitation of the society and the imposition of a managed cash-crop farming system led to a decade of social unrest. President Theodore Roosevelt concluded that running foreign policy through a private firm was unsuccessful, which led him to order a U.S. occupation in January 1905. Vesser draws from American, English, French, and Dominican archival materials to present a detailed and well-written account of the early growth of U.S. overseas influence. Highly recommended. Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. Lib., Parkersburg
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231125860
• ISBN 13: 9780231125864
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 190