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United States Perceptions of Latin America, 1850-1930: A "New West" South of Capricorn?
United States Perceptions of Latin America 18501930 A New West South of Capricorn Author:J. Valerie Fifer The temperate South was widely regarded as the setting for spectacular new growth in South America in the second half of the 19th century. This book focuses on the changing perceptions of the US government to the region between 1850 and 1930. In a period of increasing European commercial penetration of Latin America, the United States had begun ... more »to seek a more active political and economic role in the subcontinent. American attitudes to the Far South - a region also referred to by Americans as the Southland or the land below Capricorn - acquired a double edge. This study sets out to show that the US perceptions of temperate South America were not merely the perceptions of a United States rehearsing a general policy of special hemispheric relationships and "backyard" economic and political interests; they were also the perceptions of a United States actively engaged in the economic and political development of its own trans-Mississippi West. The experience gained there influenced assessments of Southern South America.« less