American Affairs Research Articles

"Petty Spy" or Effective Diplomat: The Role of George Beckwith

George Beckwith, a Royal Army intelligence officer, lurked in the shadows of Benedict Arnold's treason. Still operating in shadows, he reappeared in the United States five more times during the next ten years. His activities reflected Britain's disdain for the republic and a decade-long frustration resulting from an irksome foreign policy problem of its own creation. The British had ignored the formal diplomacy offered by John Adams and refused to send their own minister to New York. Yet the very existence of the United States menaced British interests in North America, a threat that could not be ignored. Forestalling such threats, real or imagined, forced the English government to rely on a checkered assortment of semi-official or semi-secret contacts to observe, influence, and manipulate American domestic and foreign affairs. Beckwith was one of these informal instruments of British diplomacy--certainly the most interesting, perhaps the most effective.' Beckwith remains, however, an enigmatic figure in histories about the early American republic. More often than not, he is mentioned only in a footnote. Recently a few scholars have attempted to examine his role more closely, generally to prove a point of

Music in Turn-of-the-Century America: A View from the "Old World"

A Viennese newspaper has gravely given vent to the information that Gustav Mahler was offered the neat sum of $120,000 a year to be director of the Metropolitan Opera House and refused it.... It is most instructive to study the logic of the European intellect when it is engaged in its favorite amusement, that of demonstrating that the American is the product of a distinctly inferior order of the dust of the earth. In one sentence it writes us down a nation of moneymaking merchants and in the next it charges us with business methods fit only for the ravings of an asylum. For the amusement of the Viennese newspapers . .. let it be here recorded that Mr. Mahler. . . has not refused either the exclusive direction of the Metropolitan Opera House nor $120,000 for the sufficient reason that neither has been offered to him.... It is always instructive to read European newspapers on American affairs. It gives us the much needed opportunity to see ourselves as others see us-with their eyes shut.'

The Shadow of Latin American Affairs

The Shadow of Latin American Affairs

Les catholiques face au New Deal

The Catholics and the New Deal, Claude Fohlen. After the First World War, the American Catholics, mostly recent immigrants, were objects of suspicion in public life. The Protestants feared « Papist » interference in American affairs should Catholics be strongly represented in the federal administration. Poorly integrated, the Catholics had a hard time finding their place in the political arena. This explains the failure of the candidacy of the Democratic Governor of New York to the Presidency in 1928. As of 1932, the Catholics were to join massively the Democratic Party. They contributed to Franklin Roosevelt's victory, making the New Deal years those of the acceptance of Catholics in American society.

Politics and Culture in the Fiction of D'Arcy McNickle

A man of many talents, D'Arcy McNickle (1904-1977) is noted as a historian, civil servant, Native American rights advocate, and novelist. McNickle, a member of the Salish Tribe, published three novels, six ethnohistorical studies of White/Native American affairs, and a biography of Oliver LaFarge, most of these being written during his 16 years in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He is viewed today as the grandfather of Modern Native American Literature and his work is studied in many classes. Yet what is written about his fiction seems to reflect little of his ethnohistorical writings and his years of experience in the political arena. As Lawrence Towner suggests in an afterword to McNickle's novel, The Surrounded (1936), everything he wrote was about the First Americans, their culture and their history (304). It seems clear that in whatever he wrote, McNickle was revising and rewriting, developing and elaborating on the insights of all his previous work. In this light I would like to compare his final novel, Wind from an Enemy Sky (1978), to his earlier novels The Surrounded and Runner in the Sun (1954) and to illuminate his fiction through an understanding of his definition of culture as expressed in his ethnohistorical study They Came Here First (1949). Two significant processes that shaped the writing of Wind from an Enemy Sky affect our interpretations of this book and its vision of intratribal politics and White/Native American political relationships. First, in this novel, McNickle is, in a very real sense, rewriting The Surrounded, and to a minor extent Runner in the Sun, so as to incorporate the experience of over 40 years of White/Native American political maneuvering. Secondly, in this revision process, his conclusions about the cognitive maps of White and Native American societies, and more specifically his definition of culture as a process of necessary dynamic change, inform his fiction. While some critics see Wind from an Enemy Sky as a static statement of destroyed culture, to view the culture as process, as McNickle saw it, adds new dimensions to an appreciation of his novels. (See, for instance, Larson, Owens, and Wiget). In The Surrounded, the internal political structures of the tribe have been destroyed. What should be the orderly lines of communication and authority no longer exist. The tribe drifts in a state of confusion and despair. The social functions of the chiefs have been taken over by the government agent, who barely understands

Politics and Culture in the Fiction of D'Arcy McNickle

Politics and Culture in the Fiction ofD'ArcyMcNickle James Ruppert University ofAlaska, Fairbanks A man of many talents, D'Arcy McNickle (1904-1977) is noted as a historian, civil servant, Native American rights advocate, and novelist. McNickle, a member of the Salish Tribe, published three novels, six ethnohistorical studies of White/Native American affairs, and a biography of Oliver LaFarge, most of these being written during his 16 years in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He is viewed today as the grandfather ofModern Native American Literature and his work is studied in many classes. Yet what is written about his fiction seems to reflect little of his ethnohistorical writings and his years of experience in the political arena. As Lawrence Towner suggests in an afterword to McNickle's novel, The Surrounded (1936), "everything he wrote was about the First Americans, their culture and their history" (304). It seems clear that in whatever he wrote, McNickle was revising and rewriting, developing and elaborating on the insights of all his previous work. In this light I would like to compare his final novel, Wind from an Enemy Sky (1978), to his earlier novels The Surrounded and Runner in the Sun ( 1954) and to illuminate his fiction through an understanding of his definition of culture as expressed in his ethnohistorical study They Came Here First (1949). Two significant processes that shaped the writing of Wind from an Enemy Sky affect our interpretations of this book and its vision of intratribal politics and White/Native American political relationships . First, in this novel, McNickle is, in a very real sense, rewriting The Surrounded, and to a minor extent Runner in the Sun, so as to incorporate the experience of over 40 years of White/Native American political maneuvering. Secondly, in this revision process, his conclusions about the cognitive maps of White and Native American societies, and more specifically his definition of culture as a process of necessary dynamic change, inform his fiction. While some critics see Wind from an Enemy Sky as a static statement of destroyed culture, to view the culture as process, as McNickle saw it, adds new dimensions to an appreciation ofhis novels. (See, for instance , Larson, Owens, and Wiget). In The Surrounded, the internal political structures of the tribe have been destroyed. What should be the orderly lines of communication and authority no longer exist. The tribe drifts in a state of confusion and despair. The social functions of the chiefs have been taken over by the government agent, who barely understands 185 186Rocky Mountain Review his role. Though he plays the role of a lawgiver, he is a lawgiver who does not understand the effects of his laws. The coherent functions of law enforcement, once a common tribal responsibility, have been taken over by the vindictive and hateful Sheriff Quigley. To mirror this breakdown of the internal political structures, McNickle presents a similar breakdown in internal religious structures . The religious structures which once lent organization to the tribe and the individual have been subsumed by the Catholic missionaries . The dances which engendered clan and generational solidarity and identity have been banned, and commonly understood notions of wrong doing and atonement have been replaced with alien concepts of sin and eternal damnation, creating only fear and confusion for the people. Modeste, the blind old chief and storyteller, is all that remains of the political and religious structure of the Salish tribe. The older people pay him little attention and the young people laugh at him. Father Grepilloux, the first missionary priest, had gained the respect of the Salish, even though he never really understood them, and they never really accepted his beliefs or way of life. In contrast, the new priests want only obedient charges. While the old missionaries of the mid-to-late nineteenth century did lead the White world to the Salish, McNickle seems to be saying that their paternalism was preferable to the institutionalized disregard and disrespect he saw at the time he was growing up on the reservation. In the development of these motifs, the protagonist's mother, Katherine, plays a major role. Katherine, the daughter of a chief, was the first Salish convert to the Christian...

Cuba's International Relations, The Anatomy of a Nationalistic Foreign Policy. By H. Michael Erisman. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985. Pp. xv + 203. $34.00, cloth; $13.95, paper.)

From its inception, Fidel Castro's revolution has exerted an impact on the international scene far out of proportion to Cuba's modest size and limited resources. This phenomenon became more pronounced in the mid-1970s as Havana's foreign policies took on truly global parameters that involved the dispatch of large combat forces to Angola and Ethiopia, the initiation of ambitious military and developmental aid programs for Third World nations, and the assumption of leadership of the Nonaligned Movement. Today Cuba remains a significant actor on the world scene, giving top priority to Caribbean and Central American affairs. Critics, especially in the United States, have insisted that Cuban globalism is not a nationalist expression, that Cuba is but a surrogate for the Soviet Union. Such charges, however, ignore or seriously underestimate the role that nationalism has always played in the Cuban Revolution. This book explores the nature and development of Castro's foreign relations in general and Cuban globalism in particular, with primary attention devoted to nationalism's influence on Havana's policies toward the United States, the Soviet Union, and especially the developing (mostly nonaligned) African, Asian, and Latin countries of the Third World. To give the reader an in-depth Cuban perspective on crucial international issues, excerpts from Castro's major speeches and press interviews are included. Erisman concludes that the nationalistic dimension of Havana's foreign policies has definitely not been fully appreciated, and this omission obscures the complexity and true essence of Cuban globalism.

“Bisnes” In Nicaragua A New Headache For The Sandinistas

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsRichard LapperRichard Lapper covers Central American affairs for the Economist Intelligence Unit and for the London-based Caribbean Insight. His most recent working visit to the region was in January 1986.

Spanish American Independence

For most of Spanish America, the colonial period came to an end between 1810 and 1825 in a regionwide struggle for independence (Graham, 1972; Lynch, 1973; Kinsbruner, 1976; Dominguez, 1980; Liss, 1983). Though that struggle politically transformed the region, replacing colonialism with independence and the monarchical state with nominally republican institutions, it produced far less change in social and economic relations. Destruction and devastation the wars created in profusion, but as Spanish America slowly rebuilt itself, it did so along lines not greatly dissimilar to what had existed before. How was it that violence of such duration and magnitude, provoking significant popular mobilization and taking place in societies riven by powerful internal conflicts and tensions, did not have a greater impact on the social and economic structures of the region? In short, why did the independence struggles, so often labeled revolutions, in fact fail to produce anything remotely approaching a genuine social revolution? This question in turn raises others concerning the causes of independence. By 1810, elites throughout the colonies shared a desire for a greater voice in the administration of American affairs. As a welldeveloped dominant class, the creole elites had reached a level of corporate maturity that produced growing frustration at their colonial status and resentment of Spain's presumption of the right to dictate how the New World would be governed. But despite this chafing under the Spanish yoke, the colonies by no means moved toward the goal of independence with equal speed and determination. Whereas Argentina

Toward the Democratic Opening in Latin America: The Case of Brazil

Dictatorship, authoritarianism, corporatism, fascism, and repression characterize much of the past and present history of Latin America. Reinforcing these tendencies has been the hegemony of domestic ruling classes in league with U.S. policymakers and multinational corporations. Over the years the involvement of the United States in Latin American affairs has assumed several forms of intervention: overt, including hundreds of incidents of direct attack by military force—before Grenada most notably the invasion by 25,000 U.S. marines of the Dominican Republic in 1965; covert, including the CIA organization of the 1954 coup in Guatemala, in Chile during the early 1970s, and current destabilization activities along the Nicaraguan border; and corporate, including efforts by ITT to depose Salvador Allende in 1970 and thereafter the invisible blockade of Chilean copper exports by Kennecott. Popular forces and classes have opposed these tendencies and the old order through numerous movements of resistance, for example, abortive military uprisings in Brazil during the 1920s; electoral strategies, resulting in social democratic regimes; and revolutions in Cuba and Nicaragua.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Diderot and America

Diderot and America JACQUES CHOUILLET In 1971 Leon Gorny published a book called Diderot, un grand Europeen.1 I have hopes of one day writing a book called Diderot, un grand Americain. Even if this plan never sees the light of day, I shall at least have had the satisfaction, thanks to the ASECS s invitation, of giv­ ing you the main outlines of the project. A few statistics to explain what I mean. From 1900 to 1980 there were 122 American theses on Diderot; of this total, only 7 were written be­ tween 1900 and 1939 and 5 from 1940 to 1949. But after the mid-century the trickle becomes a flood: 24 theses between 1950 and 1959, 34 between 1960 and 1969, and 52 from 1970 to 1980. Already in 1949 Otis Fellows and Norman Torrey foresaw this devel­ opment. They wrote: "Diderot is fast becoming the centre of an everincreasing weight of studies." It is true, they did add, "he still remains comparatively unknown on this side of the Atlantic," but they neverthe­ less declared, "It is perhaps not too presumptuous to assume that the com­ ing generation of Americans will realize a new and vitally significant Diderot."2 How can we account for this fantastic progress? First of all, we must emphasize the role played by American scholars, and in particular by O. Fellows and N. Torrey, the founders of Diderot Studies — which is still flourishing, thanks to the courage and efficiency of O. Fellows and Diana Guiragossian. If we look at the journals devoted to the three greatest eighteenth-century French writers, one is published in the United States, the second in Britain, and the third in Switzerland. This is a surprising paradox, which does not necessarily mean that the French neglect their great names, for we have journals for Saint-Simon, Saint-Martin, Sade, 223 224 / CHOUILLET and many others. However, should we still suspect that solitude and exile are the lot of our greatest writers? We should perhaps remember that Vol­ taire, Diderot, and Rousseau were in their own day the object of persecu­ tions which forced them to choose between exile and semi-clandestinity. Even though Diderot refused to leave the capital to join Voltaire at Fer­ ney, he was forced to keep his most compromising writings to himself or to circulate them among only among the small number of subscribers to the Correspondance litteraire. The extraordinary adventure of his manu­ scripts is well known; part of them were sent to the Russian empress after his death, and the rest were bequeathed to his daughter Angelique de Vandeul and subsequently left to rot in the attic of a chateau in HauteNormandie . They were found there in a very bad state by Herbert Dieckmann , who undertook to reproduce them and draw up an inventory be­ fore they were deposited at the Bibliotheque nationale under the name of the Fonds Vandeul. In the journal Dix-huitieme Siecle, no. 12, A. M. Chouillet and I drew up the detailed inventory of all the books and articles published on Dide­ rot between 1974 and 1979.3 Even if we take only the works published by Americans in their country, this contribution is most important both quantitatively and for its new perspectives. One should also not forget that it was in America that both Otis Fellows's Diderot and Arthur Wil­ son's two masterly biographies, Diderot: The Testing Tears (1957), and its continuation and development, titled simply Diderot (1972), were pub­ lished. A. Wilson provided us with a justification for his own preference for Diderot. He is, Wilson says, "a man holding out his hand to the future, a man whose temperament, daring and independence of thought are bet­ ter suited to the twentieth century than they were to his own period."4 This is the most general explanation for Diderot's relative popularity in the United States. There is, however, another reason, less evident but no less decisive — Diderot's own interest in American affairs as early as 1759, seventeen years before the Declaration of Independence. This aspect of his work is linked to his collaboration on Raynal's Histoire des Deux In­ des. His...

Carlos Montezuma and the Changing World of American Indians

Carlos Montezuma (1866-1923) was one of the great Native American crusaders for Indian rights in the early twentieth century. This biography by an authority on Southwest Indian history tells a dramatic story that sheds light both on Montezuma's career and on the movements he influenced. A southern Arizona Yavapai called Wassaja by his parents, Montezuma was captured by rival tribesman as a boy and sold to a white man who gave him the name by which we know him. Trained as a physician, his career as a reformer began when he went to work at the Carlisle Indian School, for here--in addition to serving as physician to the famous Carlisle football team--he was able to meet many of the people centrally involved in the administration of federal Indian policy. Shortly after the turn of the century Montezuma emerged as a national leader of Native American affairs. He helped to found the Society of American Indians and became increasingly involved in the affairs of the Fort McDowell Yavapai reservation, earning fame among pan-Indian activists and among his own people in Arizona and attaining notoriety in the BIA.

Organizational Change and Conflict: A Case Study of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is one of the most important institutions in contemporary Native American affairs. During most of the present century BIA officials have had direct administrative control over most local reservation institutions such as education, law enforcement, resource management and others. Historically, reservation tribal governments have had little decision-making power over goals and policies that affect their people. The primary task of this paper is to evaluate the effect of several reform movements that challenged BIA domination over Native American reservation communities during the seventies. An examination is made of the impact of local reservation groups, administrative organizations and legislative changes on the structure and functions of the BIA. Attempts to gain control of reservation institutions by reservation groups and reorganization efforts from within the executive branch have failed to force the BIA to relinquish its bureaucratic domination over reservation communities. The most effective means for forcing change on the BIA came from congressional legislation in the form of the Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. Even this reform could not break the continued domination of BIA bureaucracy over local reservation institutions, since the Act was Duane Champagne is a member of the Sociology faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles and has been a Research and Teaching Fellow at Harvard University and a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution.

Currently living in Spain, Carlos Montaner is surely one of the leading authorities on Cuba writing today. His volume on the Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution is a documentary analysis of Cuban participation in the world scene and also analyzes the character of social change within Cuba in the past two decades. This is one of the very few books which has attempted to place in a twenty-year perspective the Castro Revolution, without the conventional apologetics, either pro or anti, so characteristic of the writing in this field. Whether describing Cuban adventures in Africa or Castro repression of dis-sent at home, this work is informed by precise information unused by any other writer on the subject. Montaner's book is also more than ethnography or reportage. It is based on a thorough-going appreciation of the Cuban Revolution as a military revolution and of the military as the spine of the entire system, linking Cuban domestic and foreign affairs and giving substance to its claims as a mini world power. At the same time, this raises the possibility of a new formation of dependency--military dependency--that makes Cuba even more closely bound to Soviet af-fairs than the rest of Latin America is to American affairs. The volume is a pro-vocative and significant contribution to the current debates on the nature of the Cuban Revolution--one that will form a central part of these debates in the years ahead.

A Forgotten Prophet: Henry McCulloh and Reform of the British Empire

History has not been kind to the memory of Henry McCulloh. After a century and a half of almost total obscurity, he emerged for a time in historical accounts as an important colonial expert, an advisor to ministries, and an eminence grise on such important colonial matters as the Stamp Act and Sugar Act.1 More recently, he has been exposed as a self-serving land speculator and placeseeker whose influence on government was far less significant than once was argued.2 Throughout most accounts has run a thread of misinformation, which, as one scholar has pointed out, resulted from his being confused with another man of similar name.-1 Unfortunately, in all the claims and countercharges, a large part of Henry McCulloh's rightful place in the history of the first British Empire has become obscured. For while McCulloh may have been a land-grabber and placeseeker (and who involved in imperial affairs in the eighteenth century was neither?), while he may not have been singlehandedly responsible for either the idea or the execution of the Stamp and Sugar Acts, in the decade of the 1750s his was an articulate voice in Britain on the subject of the American colonies and the themes of imperial regulation and colonial reform. In memorials to ministers and through the publication of a series of lengthy pamphlets on American affairs, McCulloh put forward a far-reaching and coherent series of proposals for reform. While attributing influence to such ideas may well be fraught with danger, McCulloh and his writings nevertheless provide an important illustration of how the American Empire could be viewed by knowledgeable men in the 1750s, as well as indicate the sorts of motivations which prompted such scrutiny and perhaps even some of the ultimate reasons for the failure to pay proper attention to the advice proffered.

The letters of William Lloyd Garrison , vol. 6: To Rouse the Slumbering Land, 1868-1879 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS75 and extended these earlier conclusions. Viewed in a positive light, from a personal perspective, the publication of Cox's book has placed me at complete liberty to give absolute priority to other scholarly interests. Richard O. Curry University of Connecticut The letters of William Lloyd Garrison, vol. 6: To Rouse the Slumbering Land, 1868-1879. Edited by Walter Merrill and Louis Ruchames. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Pp. 672. $45.00.) Writing to a friend in 1874, William Lloyd Garrison sadly admitted his new role in American affairs: "I am forced to be rather a looker-on than an actor in thestruggles of the times" (p. 344) . This volume of letters provides continual evidence that Garrison felt trapped—trapped by old age, by an invalid wife, indeed even by the end of the antislavery crusade. Yet in spite of his infirmities and troubles, Garrison found, in his last years, ample chance to comment and to evaluate. He even engaged in a controversy or two. Always a mixture of the conservative moralizer and the radical reformer , Garrison could, in his early career, unite both sides into a complex Christian anarchism. Yet, in his last years, he tended to choose the former as his most regularly used voice. His passionate support for Republican interests forced him to wink at corruption, to overstate Republican aid to southern blacks, only to feel betrayed by the Hayes stand on the South. Garrison's faith that "the cause of civilization is preeminently indebted for its advancement to the inventive faculty and the hand of industry" (p. 103) allowed him to reach the conclusion that the problems of workers lay "in sensual indulgence, in a licentious perversion of liberty, in the prevalence of liberty, and in whatever tends to the demoralization of the people" (p. 387). The more familiar radical does occasionally emerge in these letters. Garrison liked to revive his most hyperbolic style when discussing the evil located in the former slaveholding states. So too, his support for women's rights grew during his final decade; he came alive when castigating those fellow advocates who failed to meet his tests of sincerity or purity. The letters also reveal that Garrison's thought on the issues of the day occupied increasingly less of his time as a great deal else demanded his attention. These letters provide wonderful glimpses of Garrison's devotion to family, including an especially delightful series to his grandchildren . His wife, severely crippled after a stroke in 1863, received substantial doses of his loving attention; after her death, herecounted to one of his sons, "I wander from room to room in a state of bewilderment " (p. 400). Garrison took a deep interest in the affairs of his children, deriving pleasure from news of grandchildren, work, and 76CIVIL WAR HISTORY travels. The picture which emerges, then, is of a family life full of real warmth and affection, easily scorned as conventional, yet nevertheless inescapably touching. Beyond these many elements of the letters, one other aspect dominates : they of course reflect Garrison's view of the world from the vantage point of old age. He took numerous opportunities to sum up, to find some general meaning in his life's events, especially his role in "our old but sublime conflict" (p. 266). He hoped he might produce his own line of reformers. At the birth of a fourth grandchild, he proclaimed: "The adversary may take warning that there is to be warm work in the field of moral conflict, in due time" (p. 67). Garrison regularly and vigorously sought to settle old grudges and vindicate himself and his friends. Indeed, this aspect of these letters is so rich that historians of American reform movements might consider this final part of reformers' lives with some of the thoughtfulness that has recently gone into the study of their childhoods. Walter Merrill and the late Louis Ruchames have produced an excellent final volume, full of wonderfully useful notes and an introduction particularly valuable for students of the history of the family. A few minor complaints should not be thought to take anything away from this accomplishment. Footnotes on John Calvin, Martin Luther, and other well-known figures...

America's Lafayette and Lafayette's America: A European and the American Revolution

HE marquis de Lafayette's participation in the American Revolution was an extraordinary success. Americans took to him more warmly than they did to any other foreigner during the war, and he remained their favorite European throughout long life and for the remainder of the nineteenth century.1 Few outsiders have ever achieved such popularity or played such a vital role in the revolution of another country. Lafayette recognized that the American War for Independence was a new kind of conflict, different from the politics and wars of Europe. An eager student of American affairs, he quickly learned that in America politics and military strategy were connected in ways that most other Europeans, even most other Frenchmen in America, did not understand. Lafayette accepted the new style of republican warfare, mastered its political techniques, praised its Revolutionary practitioners, and was rewarded as the outsider made insider. This essay investigates how the relationship between America amd Lafayette was established, how it developed, and why Lafayette-aristocrat, Frenchman, cosmopolitan-was so successful in the new nation. American leaders first showed interest in the young nobleman because they assumed that family connections might be useful in securing French support for their cause. Silas Deane's promise of a military commission for Lafayette, signed in Paris in December I776, stressed his high Birth, Alliances, the great Dignities which Family holds at this

The Politics of Bilateral Management: The Case of the Automotive Trade

Despite numerous fluctuations in the rhetoric of Canadian-American relations over the past decade, most scholarly analysis has continued to be dominated by a concept of the relationship which highlights its special lack of, and insulation from, the conflicting interests and power politics which prevail in the world beyond North America. The most obvious aspects of this specialness are the profound disparity in size and the intense socio-economic interaction between Canada and the United States, a structure which generates a continuing predisposition to solve the problems and to secure the benefits of complex interdependence through a continuously enlarging sphere of co-operation. A further special feature is the tendency to manage this interdependence through private, bilateral consultations among functional counterparts, held within joint organizations or at ad hoc meetings, and directed at solving problems on the basis of shared information, technical expertise, a refusal to link problems to other issues, and a strongly shared set of values and perceptions about the bilateral relationship and the outside world. Perhaps the most fundamental dimension of specialness is the presumed insulation of this process from the larger forces at work in the international system. While events abroad may generate issues for the bilateral agenda and explain Canada's more intense preoccupation with North American affairs, both a globally preoccupied United States and an internationally

Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886-1910

The appearance of Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886-1910 , had several important consequences for the entire field of Latin American history, as well as for the study of Colombia. Through Bergquist's analysis of this transitional period in terms of what has been called the dependency theory, he has left his mark on all subsequent studies in Latin American affairs; questions of economic development and political alignment cannot be dealt with without confronting Bergquist's work. he has also provided a major contribution to Colombian history by his examination of the growth of the coffee industry and Thousand Days War.

The New England Council on Latin American Studies (Neclas)

Although the history of Latin American studies in New England is long and luminous, from Prescott to Haring, Morison, and numerous more recent lights, the nucleus for the organization of the New England Council was not formed until 1969. The organization of NECLAS was related both to the mushrooming growth of Latin American studies at New England colleges and universities and nationwide during the 1960s, and to the emergence of the larger private and state universities in the region as relatively new and major centers of research and teaching on Latin American affairs.