Negotiating Paradise: U. S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth- Century Latin America (Paperback)

Negotiating Paradise: U. S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth- Century Latin America Book Description

Accounts of U.S. empire building in Latin America typically portray politically and economically powerful North Americans descending on their southerly neighbors to engage in lopsided negotiations. Dennis Merrill's comparative history of U.S. tourism in Latin America in the twentieth century demonstrates that empire is a more textured, variable, and interactive system of inequality and resistance than commonly assumed.
In his examination of interwar Mexico, early Cold War Cuba, and Puerto Rico during the Alliance for Progress, Merrill demonstrates how tourists and the international travel industry facilitated the expansion of U.S. consumer and cultural power in Latin America. He also shows the many ways in which local service workers, labor unions, business interests, and host governments vied to manage the Yankee invasion. While national leaders negotiated treaties and military occupations, visitors and hosts navigated interracial encounters in bars and brothels, confronted clashing notions of gender and sexuality at beachside resorts, and negotiated national identities. Highlighting the everyday realities of U.S. empire in ways often overlooked, Merrill's analysis provides historical context for understanding the contemporary debate over the costs and benefits of globalization.

About the Author :

Dennis Merrill has contributed to Negotiating Paradise: U. S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth- Century Latin America as an author. Dennis Merrill, a professor of history and department chair at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, received his Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. He is the author of Bread and the Ballot: The United States and India's Economic Development, 1947-1963. The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations honored him with a Stuart L. Bernath Article Prize, and he has received two Fulbright awards to India. His current research interests focus on U.S.-Third World relations during the Cold War and the history of international tourism.

Book Details

Customer Reviews : Negotiating Paradise: U. S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth- Century Latin America

Be the first one to review this product!

Have you used this product?

    

Discussion : Negotiating Paradise: U. S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth- Century Latin America