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  • Yankee No! Anti-Americanism in U.S.-Latin American Relations
  • Michael R. Hall
Yankee No! Anti-Americanism in U.S.-Latin American Relations. By Alan McPherson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. x, 257. Illustrations. Abbreviations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39.95 cloth.

Placing his study within the context of the events following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., Alan McPherson successfully argues that anti-Americanism is not simply a "pathological prejudice" against the citizens and/or government of the United States, but rather a "complex and political concept that merits serious treatment by historians" (pp. 169-170). McPherson focuses on the role of anti-Americanism in four events in U.S.-Latin American relations between 1958 and 1966. Beginning with a discussion of the physical attack on Vice President Richard Nixon in Caracas, Venezuela in 1958, which served as a wake-up call for U.S. policy makers to the potential threat of anti-Americanism, McPherson uses more fully developed case studies to show how Latin Americans used anti-Americanism to denounce U.S. hegemonic assumptions in Cuba, Panama, and the Dominican Republic.

McPherson posits three features of anti-Americanism to explain the transformation of anti-Americanism from thought into action. The first is variability. In each of the three major case studies under discussion there was a different kind of anti-Americanism unleashed, which depended on historical factors and the level and nature of U.S. hegemony in the specific nation. According to McPherson, the dominant strain of anti-Americanism was "revolutionary in Cuba, conservative in Panama, and episodic in the Dominican Republic" (p. 6). The second feature is ambivalence. McPherson illustrates how Latin Americans frequently held contradictory feelings toward the United States. This so-called love/hate relationship, although espoused by other historians, is expertly revealed in McPherson's case studies. The third feature is resilience. U.S. policy makers were forced to find new methods of dealing with this wave of anti-Americanism. [End Page 551]

Using these features of anti-Americanism as the basis of his analysis, McPherson presents a detailed examination of the Cuban revolution (1959), the Panamanian riots (1964), and intervention in the Dominican Republic (1965). In an attempt to solidify his hold on power, Fidel Castro "institutionalized" anti-Americanism following the Cuban Revolution (p. 63). Following decades of Cubans mimicking U.S. cultural, social, and economic trends, the sudden outburst of anti-Americanism stunned the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations into "diplomatic rigor mortis" (p. 50). Castro's successful use of anti-Americanism forced U.S. policy makers to reevaluate their response to anti-Americanism elsewhere in Latin America. One such response was Kennedy's creation of the Peace Corps. The Panamanian riots presented policy makers with a variety of anti-Americanism that "proved inherently manageable" (p. 115) and U.S. officials were able to mitigate the influence of anti-American rhetoric. Dominican attempts to resist U.S. hegemony were limited to what McPherson labels, "episodic anti-Americanism" (p. 123). Unlike Cuba, there were very few revolutionaries with an ideological foundation in the Dominican Republic. And unlike in Panama, the power of the traditional elites had been diminished by the impact of General Rafael Trujillo. U.S. intervention in an internal Dominican civil conflict in April, 1965 caused an immediate outpouring of anti-Americanism, which rapidly dissipated after democratic elections were scheduled for 1966.

Unlike traditional studies of U.S.-Latin American relations that concentrate on diplomatic, political, and economic history, McPherson incorporates social and cultural history into his study. In addition, Yankee No! is further enriched by the use of primary source documents from both the United States and Latin America. His extensive interviews of Latin Americans who participated in the events bring an understanding of the nature of anti-Americanism to the reader that is missing in previous studies. The interviews also highlight the point that although anti-Americanism existed throughout Latin America during the 1950s and 1960s, pro-Americanism was equally prevalent. This timely study is a valuable tool to those seeking to understand anti-Americanism in the past, as well as the present.

Michael R. Hall
Armstrong Atlantic State University...

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