Promotional Information

Focuses on environmental, policy, and human rights dimensions of the activities of the U.S. military in Panama, analysing the guiding mythologies and racial stereotypes behind the US's colonialism in the region

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 A Platform for Control: Interventions and Army Doctors, 1856-1925 11
2 "Test Tube Island" 44
3 The Nuclear Canal 74
4 Playing the Drug Card 103
5 The Politics of Environmental Cover-Up 138
6 Market Mania 172
7 Continuity and Change in the Military's Vision 191
Afterword: Knowing Ourselves / Exhortation to Read a Friendly Text by Guillermo Castro H. 207
Notes 211
Index 253

About the Author

John Lindsay-Poland is Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean. He is a coauthor of Inside Panama: The Essential Guide to its Politics, Economy, Society, and Environment. He was the editor of and staff writer for the quarterly Panamá Update and has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, NACLA Report on the Americas, The Progressive, Covert Action Quarterly, and Fellowship, among other publications.

Reviews

"[John Lindsay-Poland] tells us of ill-known truths and badly understood realities and thus helps prevent useless hatreds between two peoples who share so much common history. Panamanians must aspire to be universal if we want to survive as a people and as a nation in a globalised world, but we can only achieve that if we are authentic. On that path toward ourselves, John Lindsay-Poland has been and will be a welcome friend."- Guillermo Castro, former Deputy Minister of Education of Panama, from the Afterword "Emperors in the Jungle stands out as a most valuable contribution to understandings of the complex relationship between the United States and a tiny neighbor. It is one of the best available examples of Thucydides' dictum that large nations do what they want, and small nations accept what they must, yet at the same time a reminder that small nations are not without power-after all is said and done, Panama now owns its canal."-Lars Schoultz, author of Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America "John Lindsay-Poland has dedicated himself to issues of human rights and justice for Panamanians. His tireless efforts continue to motivate people and shed needed light on the truths he discovers. Emperors in the Jungle is a timeless look at the real dimensions of U.S. foreign policy." Barbara Trent, director of the Academy Award(r)-winning documentary, The Panama Deception "What is really new about this excellent book is ... an account of the use to which the US military put the occupied and acquired Panamanian land. In particular, Panama was used as a testing ground for US chemical weapons and much of this grim tale is related here... The military interventions, the US land grabs, the testing of chemical and biological weapons, the ecological damage--Lindsay-Poland has researched all this in detail and written a highly readable and important book... a text that deserves the widest possible readership."--Morning Star, August 25 2003 "An eye-opening history of the tangled, racially freighted dealings of the American government with its sometime client state of Panama over a hundred years."--Kirkus Reviews