Latin America's Wars: The Age of the Professional Soldier, 1900-2001, Vol. 2 by Robert L. Scheina

From the Publisher

The second volume in Robert Scheina’s definitive study of Latin American military history draws upon years of extensive research and teaching in the field. Although wags in the United States have quipped that if Latin America’s military forces were not constantly seeking political power they would have nothing to do, Scheina describes how these men have not only bravely defended their own homelands from foreign enemies but have also gone abroad to fight in both world wars and in the Korean War. This groundbreaking volume also examines the numerous U.S. interventions in Latin America during the twentieth century and the various motivations for them, ranging from the petty interests of influential North American businesses to global concerns with grand strategy which, for example, resulted in the building of the Panama Canal. Scheina concludes by exploring the role of Latin America in the Cold War and Colombia’s ongoing conflict with the drug cartels. He focuses on operational history in the context of war as an instrument of politics and society, including insightful analyses of the military as an institution and of its relations with civilian government. Latin America's Wars fills a void in the literature, broadens U.S. readers’ understanding of their neighbors, and serves as a point of departure for new scholarship.

Publishers Weekly

This timely and informative study of the White House Situation Room-a department with its own staff and duties, as well as a meeting space-is organized more thematically than chronologically. The guide is a retired naval intelligence officer and the room's director under the first President Bush. One chapter discusses how, as a result of the Bay of Pigs, the suite was carved out of the White House basement. (None of the rooms look the way Hollywood or the news media would like us to think.) Other chapters discuss the Situation Room protocols for handling alerts, communications between the President and just about anybody in the world, crises great and small and foreign and domestic, the Hot Line to Moscow (and other places) and a host of other vital national security functions. The human equation is not neglected, either: Presidents' comportment in the room has ranged from the intimidating (LBJ) to the amiably laid back (the first Bush, a former CIA director). The staff, young intelligence professionals both civil and military, enhance their careers in return for weird schedules and a wide range of unexpected tasks. The latter can range from being the only White House staff not evacuated on September 11, 2001, to warning JFK to kick out a girlfriend because Jackie was coming home early. Bohn, in his book debut, has done his historical homework and expresses himself cogently. The more background the reader has in contemporary history and intelligence the better, but this book will appeal and be accessible to anyone who has ever picked up a techno-thriller. (Mar.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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• Table of Contents

Table of Contents