Cooperating with the Colossus

Burrowing deep into the national archives in Brazil, Cuba, and Panama, Herman has produced a splendid, well-balanced history of an extraordinary but seldom studied period in inter-American relations. She pushes back against the still prevalent academic caricature of the United States as an all-powerful imperial actor, aligning herself instead with a younger generation of scholars that has emphasized Latin American agency and the ability of Latin Americans to astutely bargain with Washington....Herman deftly demonstrates how onsite U.S. commanders and diplomats cooperated with local authorities to find informal, flexible solutions to potentially tricky issues....Such pragmatic accords successfully managed the inherent tensions between international security cooperation and national sovereignty, enabling a brilliant if brief chapter of solidarity in the Western Hemisphere. * Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs *
Rebecca Herman's Cooperating with the Colossus is a superb book. Wonderfully written and impressively researched, Herman's history greatly expands our understanding of the way Washington used Latin America as a testing ground for the creation of its worldwide military-base archipelago. Cooperating with the Colossus will immediately find a deserved place in the canon of international diplomatic history. * Greg Grandin, Yale University *
The World War II years were a 'transformative crucible' in US relations with Latin America, Rebecca Herman demonstrates, requiring negotiation between the projection of American power in the name of protecting democracy, and incursions in the sovereignty of other nations. An outstanding, nuanced, and deeply researched study. * Mary L. Dudziak, author of War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences *
Cooperating with the Colossus provides a strikingly new perspective on the close encounters between US authorities and Latin American nations during World War II. Rebecca Herman brilliantly brings together the micro-level social tensions that erupted along the 'borderlands' of US military bases in Latin America during the war, and the macro-level impact of US basing on political concerns regarding national sovereignty in the region. Drawing on a vast array of sources from multi-national archival research, Herman delves into the extensive clashes and protests sparked by matters of racial discrimination, criminal jurisdiction, labor rights, and gender norms as US bases multiplied in Brazil, Cuba, and Panama. And then she goes a step further and offers us a stunning synthesis of these local dramas that amounts to a radical reinterpretation of the era of 'The Good Neighbor. * Barbara Weinstein, New York University *
The book examines the expansion of US military basing in Latin America as part of the Allied war effort. But it does more than that. Herman's multifaceted and multilevel history takes a renewed look at cooperation in asymmetrical relationships during a consequential moment. Thus, Cooperating with the Colossus joins a handful of existing books as a veritable must-read book on wartime inter-American relations. * Tom Long, International Affairs *
Herman's book has the merit of integrating and articulating different perspectives: a history of politics tout court and of the politics marking social and everyday relations around the military bases on Latin American ground. * Antonio Pedro Tota, Hispanic American Historical Review *
Cooperating with the Colossus is a must-read for historians interested in US-Latin American relations. I also recommend it to scholars exploring World War II history, and for readers interested in the specific histories of Brazil, Cuba, and Panama. * Teresa Huhle, H-LatAm *