Table of Contents

Part 1 I The Cuban Experience Chapter 2 Leonard Wood and the White Man's Burden Chapter 3 TR and the Use of Force Chapter 4 The Second Cuban Intervention, 1906 Chapter 5 Cuba Occupied Part 6 II Teach them to Elect Good Men Chapter 7 The Nicaraguan Menace Chapter 8 The Nicaraguan War, 1910–1912 Chapter 9 The Mexican Crisis Chapter 10 Veracruz Chapter 11 The Rulers of Veracruz Part 12 III Civilizing the Tropics Chapter 13 Turbulent Hispaniola Chapter 14 The Pacification of Hispaniola: 1 Chapter 15 The Pacification of Hispaniola: 2 Part 16 IV The Last Banana War Chapter 17 Interregnum, 1921–1925 Chapter 18 The Second Nicaraguan Civil War, 1925–1927 Chapter 19 The Sandino Chase Chapter 20 The Last Banana War

About the Author

Lester D. Langley is the author of numerous books about the relationship of the United States with Latin America and the Caribbean. He also serves as general editor of the University of Georgia Press Series, "The United States and the Americas."

Reviews

We are bombarded today by ill-founded polemics written by instant specialists on the Central American Caribbean areas, and—perhaps needlessly—I would stress that Langley's work is careful and it is fair. It will make the handiest of supplemental readings.
*Hispanic American Historical Review*

Recounting the history of the American 'empire' in the Caribbean Basin, the author stresses that the United States failed not so much because of the use of force (the whoe undertaking was rather reluctant at best), but because of cultural and psychological realities.
*Foreign Affairs*

Brings a sharper focus to the military's role in U.S. foreign policy in the early twentieth century.
*Military Review*

This book not only provides a pithy review of American intentions and heavy-handedness, it explains how a failed interventionist policy led to our propensity to back national dictators who promised to maintain order and respect for American lives and property. The United States did not fail because it suffered from indecisiveness or a lack or ardor, but because it could not effectively rule such conquered places.
*Foreign Service Journal*

A well-researched survey of U.S. diplomatic and military intervention in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and NIcaragua between 1900 and 1934. . . . Langley's volume is a much-needed work on this area.
*CHOICE*

In The Banana Wars, Lester D. Langley examines the activities of the U.S. armed forces in the Caribbean between 1900 and 1934. Liberally sprinkled with anecdotes and colorful details, the narrative is readable . . . and the book gives a lively sense of who its actors were and what they did.
*American Historical Review*

The Banana Wars is not only good history, it is also a document of some significance. It introduces into the body of liberal historiography an analysis of American hegemony in the Caribbean derived from a framework of imperialism. Langley moves the issue of American imperialism beyond the realm of the problematical and polemical to a place of prominence in mainstream literature.
*Pacific Historical Review*