US Interventions in Latin America Reading List (Print Version)

Promised quixotic_sense ages ago I'd upload the course reading for a seminar I'm in this semester, US Interventions in Latin America and the World. I'm still working on that but in the meantime here are my impressions of the non-electronic reading. Note, I was in most cases completely ignorant of the events described in these books (it's why I signed up for the class in the first place). In other words this was a real learning experience for me.

( Overthrow, Steve Kinzer )

( The war of 1898, Louis Perez )

( he United States occupation of Haiti, Hans Schmit )

( In the time of the butterflies, Julia Alvarez )

( Shattered hope, Piero Gleijeses )

( I, Rigoberta Menchú, Rigoberta Menchú and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray )

( Bay of Pigs declassified, edited by Peter Kornbluh )

( The Pinochet file, Peter Kornbluh )

( A nation of enemies, Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela )

[1] Okay, flash back to high school. In US History I, we've just learned that because the Maine blew up for mysterious reasons, the United States is at war with Spain in Cuba, also for mysterious reasons. Mysteriously, the war is very unpopular with a small minority of Americans, but fortunately the Spanish are defeated easily (why? who knows!), validating the majority. Finally, after the war Cuba is mysteriously never heard from again. <-- EXACTLY LIKE THAT. Meanwhile, in American Literature, we are reading On Walden Pond. This is the book Thoreau wrote while living "self-sufficiently" in the woods because he refused to pay taxes since his money was being used to support the Mexican-American War (not the same thing, but equally imperialistic and popular). I have to tell you, this aspect of Thoreau's work COMPLETELY WENT OVER MY HEAD at the time. I remember thinking, what's so bad about America that you have to childishly not pay your taxes, and run away to play woodsman, and write long rambling rants essays about whatever you feel like? And I COMPLETELY MISSED the frustrated, self-aware humor of Thoreau, who must have known he was full of shit but who did it anyway, because it was important to him and there was nothing, nothing else he could do, because the injustice he was feeling so keenly did not even register to most Americans. So, uh. My apologies to Thoreau.