Cooperating with the Colossus

Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs Burrowing deep into the national archives in Brazil, Cuba, and Panama, Herman has produced a splendid, well-balanced history of an extraordinary but seldom studied period in inter-American relations. She pushes back against the still prevalent academic caricature of the United States as an all-powerful imperial actor, aligning herself instead with a younger generation of scholars that has emphasized Latin American agency and the ability of Latin Americans to astutely bargain with Washington....Herman deftly demonstrates how onsite U.S. commanders and diplomats cooperated with local authorities to find informal, flexible solutions to potentially tricky issues....Such pragmatic accords successfully managed the inherent tensions between international security cooperation and national sovereignty, enabling a brilliant if brief chapter of solidarity in the Western Hemisphere.

Greg Grandin, Yale University Rebecca Herman's Cooperating with the Colossus is a superb book. Wonderfully written and impressively researched, Herman's history greatly expands our understanding of the way Washington used Latin America as a testing ground for the creation of its worldwide military-base archipelago. Cooperating with the Colossus will immediately find a deserved place in the canon of international diplomatic history.

Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences The World War II years were a 'transformative crucible' in US relations with Latin America, Rebecca Herman demonstrates, requiring negotiation between the projection of American power in the name of protecting democracy, and incursions in the sovereignty of other nations. An outstanding, nuanced, and deeply researched study.

Barbara Weinstein, New York University Cooperating with the Colossus provides a strikingly new perspective on the close encounters between US authorities and Latin American nations during World War II. Rebecca Herman brilliantly brings together the micro-level social tensions that erupted along the 'borderlands' of US military bases in Latin America during the war, and the macro-level impact of US basing on political concerns regarding national sovereignty in the region. Drawing on a vast array of sources from multi-national archival research, Herman delves into the extensive clashes and protests sparked by matters of racial discrimination, criminal jurisdiction, labor rights, and gender norms as US bases multiplied in Brazil, Cuba, and Panama. And then she goes a step further and offers us a stunning synthesis of these local dramas that amounts to a radical reinterpretation of the era of 'The Good Neighbor.

Tom Long, International Affairs The book examines the expansion of US military basing in Latin America as part of the Allied war effort. But it does more than that. Herman's multifaceted and multilevel history takes a renewed look at cooperation in asymmetrical relationships during a conseque...

Rebecca Herman is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter One: The Specter of Guantanamo Chapter Two: High Politics and Horse-Trading Chapter Three: Base Labor Chapter Four: Discrimination in the Canal Zone Chapter Five: Sex, Honor, and Moral Hygiene Chapter Six: Criminal Jurisdiction Chapter Seven: Cooperation at the War's End Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index