Sounds like a really good read.

sofaking wrote:

Sounds like a really good read.

See, this is what I like about this site.  Like-minded (albeit twisted) individuals with good cerebral suggestions.  I'm always on the lookout for a new read, and the two books suggested are worth my perusal.  The book I just recently finished was Journey into the Whirlwind which is about the Russian purges of the '30s.  The author, a woman and diehard communist, did not condone a Trotskyst vehemently enough, and was put into the gulag system for over 20 years.  It really opened my eyes to the insanity of the Stalinist era and the brutality that occurred.  Hell, even Stalin's wife was under suspicion for being a covert spy and which eventually led to her suicide.  Good times...Good times...

By the way, I'm interested in finding a general overview book on US involvement in the Western Hemisphere (foreign policy, economic policy, etc.).  I am primarily interested in Central and South America, although US involvement with Canada would be interesting as well.   I know it is brutal and quite one sided, but what irks me is that most Americans know more about European history than the history of their own hemisphere (present company included - thus my question).  All suggestions welcome

sic wrote:

By the way, I'm interested in finding a general overview book on US involvement in the Western Hemisphere (foreign policy, economic policy, etc.).  I am primarily interested in Central and South America, although US involvement with Canada would be interesting as well.   I know it is brutal and quite one sided

US citizenry has the collective memory of a single fruit fly, so the same history repeats over and over, generation after generation. You do could lots worse than start here:

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

And here:

Books by Mario Vargas Llosa, in English translation.

The one sided narratives endemic of that region - don't omit the Caribbean, essentially the same grim colonial history - are a simple consequence of insufferable outrage without end. Kind of hard to drain the swamp, or write coherent and balanced history, when you're up to your ass in alligators.

I traveled on assignment to Costa Rica and Panama 20 years ago, a business writer covering agriculture and wondering why, as had so many before me, a fertile paradise has trouble feeding itself. The first puzzle I confronted was the idiocy of embracing North American farming practices clearly out of step with a year round growing season.

I soon gave it all up in disgust when I realized one overwhelming fact. I don't know how other folks define slavery but a 160 per cent annual return on investment is as close as I ever want to get.