Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War
Miller analyzes US-Venezuelan relations during the 1950s and 1960s as a case study for the broader political dynamics of the hemisphere and beyond during the critical period of the global Cold War. He addresses the perception that US foreign policy toward Latin America was an overwhelming failure in which initiatives intended to promote democracy and modernization, and to insulate the hemisphere from the ideological struggles of the global Cold War, reaped only authoritarian regimes, uneven and sluggish economic growth, and abstract debates over capitalism and communism that distracted attention from Latin America's pressing socioeconomic problems. Precarious Paths to Freedom demonstrates that Washington rather achieved success by cultivating a partnership with a democratizing Venezuela. From 1958 onward US policymakers identified Venezuela as the crucial bulwark against political extremism and as the ideal partner in the creation of a modernized, prosperous, and pro-US Latin America.

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Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War
Miller analyzes US-Venezuelan relations during the 1950s and 1960s as a case study for the broader political dynamics of the hemisphere and beyond during the critical period of the global Cold War. He addresses the perception that US foreign policy toward Latin America was an overwhelming failure in which initiatives intended to promote democracy and modernization, and to insulate the hemisphere from the ideological struggles of the global Cold War, reaped only authoritarian regimes, uneven and sluggish economic growth, and abstract debates over capitalism and communism that distracted attention from Latin America's pressing socioeconomic problems. Precarious Paths to Freedom demonstrates that Washington rather achieved success by cultivating a partnership with a democratizing Venezuela. From 1958 onward US policymakers identified Venezuela as the crucial bulwark against political extremism and as the ideal partner in the creation of a modernized, prosperous, and pro-US Latin America.

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Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War

Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War

by Aragorn Storm Miller
Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War

Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War

by Aragorn Storm Miller

Hardcover

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Overview

Miller analyzes US-Venezuelan relations during the 1950s and 1960s as a case study for the broader political dynamics of the hemisphere and beyond during the critical period of the global Cold War. He addresses the perception that US foreign policy toward Latin America was an overwhelming failure in which initiatives intended to promote democracy and modernization, and to insulate the hemisphere from the ideological struggles of the global Cold War, reaped only authoritarian regimes, uneven and sluggish economic growth, and abstract debates over capitalism and communism that distracted attention from Latin America's pressing socioeconomic problems. Precarious Paths to Freedom demonstrates that Washington rather achieved success by cultivating a partnership with a democratizing Venezuela. From 1958 onward US policymakers identified Venezuela as the crucial bulwark against political extremism and as the ideal partner in the creation of a modernized, prosperous, and pro-US Latin America.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780826356871
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Publication date: 05/15/2016
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Aragorn Storm Miller is a lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

1 New Looks and New Nationalisms, 1956-1959 1

2 The Contest for a New Political Order: The Last Stand of the Caribbean Right Wing and the Triumph of Liberal Nationalism, 1959-1961 33

3 Contesting Liberalism: Kennedy, Betancourt, and the Newest Left in Latin America, 1960-1963 65

4 Sharpening Swords and Ideas: Washington, Caracas, and the Deepening Insurgency, 1964-1965 105

5 A Coalescing Center and Splintering Radicalism, 1966-1967 143

6 "It Is Difficult to Take Up Arms, but at Times More Difficult to Release Them": The Twilight of the Guerrilla War, 1967-1968 179

Conclusion 213

Notes 223

Bibliography 263

Index 269

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