While I don’t always play to type regarding the old-white-man meme, I have to admit, I’m a bit of a history buff and a recovering die-hard capitalist. Nevertheless, (although perhaps playing to type), before picking up this really interesting read, I was vaguely aware of Conquistadorian atrocities and Bolivarian chutzpah, but that was about the extent of my knowledge of the history and economic development of a region I really enjoyed working and traveling in throughout my career.

To describe Grandin’s work as an eye-opener doesn’t do it justice. He writes with a hard Left-lean, but Grandin rehabilitates the image of some Catholic intellectuals who understood the extent and depravity of Spain’s approach to the “New World” and try to speak out against the injustices occurring there. With few exceptions, Grandin sees U.S. foreign policy as the cause of lot of the economic underdevelopment in Latin America and argues that the U.S. made a mistake in not including the region in the scope of the Marshall Plan investments made to rebuild Europe. I think that can be argued. What seems much more clear is that U.S. devotion to the “Monroe Doctrine”, without ever really defining the term, led to an inconsistent and largely unjust foreign policy approach through most of history. Grandin credits the FDR Administration, and specifically Iowan Henry Wallace, as a rare example of enlighted approach in the region.