Beyond Geopolitics: New Histories of Latin America at the League of Nations eds. by Alan McPherson and Yannick Wehrli (review)

Building upon recent additions to the historiography of Latin America and the League of Nations, Alan McPherson and Yannick Wehrli have advanced a collection of essays examining the complexities and contradictions of Latin American membership in the League. Several of the essays in this work originated in a 2011 conference "Latin America and 'International Geneva' during the Interwar Period: The Origins of Regional and International Integration" conducted in Geneva. The editors argue that "participation in the LN had a real impact on Latin American politics and societies" (3). Noting that the nations of Latin America constituted between 20% and 1/3 of the membership of the League at various points, McPherson and Wehrli contend that institutions such as the International Labor Office took special care to examine issues specific to the nations of Latin America in order to cement the image of the League as an international body. While the participation of Latin American nations highlighted the competing pressures of universalism and regionalism, it was that same tension that enabled these nations to show that they were ready to be part of a global community, even if "it would do so only if its distinct identity were somehow accommodated." (259)

Organized to mirror the historiography of the subject, the essays in this collection are divided into four sections: Sovereignty and Conflict Resolution, Labor, Intellectual and Scientific Cooperation, and Economic and Social Activities. The themes of cultural distinctiveness, the ongoing tension between universalism and regionalism, and the evolving relationship between Latin America and the United States also frame several of these topics. The latter presents an especially fascinating opportunity for study given that the political limits of the League were, to some degree, offset by a series of Pan-American conferences during this period.

The four chapters on Sovereignty and Conflict Resolution address attempts to limit the ongoing interventions of the United States in Latin America while also examining the support for and opposition against intervening elsewhere under the auspices of the League. McPherson focuses upon the efforts of leaders from Haiti and the Dominican Republic to find a forum to curtail intervention by the United States. Given that Article 21 of the League's charter recognized the validity of the Monroe Doctrine, these efforts fell short, leaving the League a "purely rhetorical tool" in this regard (26). In examining the question of supporting League efforts to resolve other conflicts abroad, Wehrli examines the limits of collective security as Latin American member states attempted to delay and limit sanctions imposed for the Abyssinian War in order to protect their economic relationships with Italy. For Wehrli, the potential risks of collective security and the possibility of being drawn into intervention abroad not only led to the withdrawal of six Latin American members over the next few years but also an insistence from Latin American delegates in 1945 that the United Nations Charter address regional peacekeeping.

It was, however, in the area of technical work that the League came closest in creating an enduring legacy in Latin America. Maria Leticia Galluzzi Bizzo underscores the importance of the League's Third International Conference on Nutrition, which led "national authorities to take steps to institutionalize nutrition in science and policy" (232). Equally important, this conference offered opportunities for specialists to build greatly needed interpersonal and international networks. In a separate piece, Amelia M. Kiddle calls attention to the broader significance of the League's technical programs as its leadership became conscious of the need to publicly separate the technical contributions of the League's organs from its political work, especially as World War II loomed closer. The 1938 mission led by Undersecretary-General Luis Podestá Costa, for example, led to increased recognition of the significance of the "grande obra silenciosa" (250) of the League in the newspapers of...