These essays on the foreign policies of 16 Latin American countries and an additional article covering the Caribbean Community and Common Market (written specifically for this volume) all follow a common format based on three levels of analysis: the system, the state, and the individual. The editors and authors adopt James Rosenau’s conceptual framework in an attempt to provide a useful comparative look at a wide variety of countries. The volume is by and large successful in this goal. Intended principally as a text, it should be very useful in that role.
Although the relationship with the United States is an important part of the system-level analysis, the authors take the perspective of individual countries looking out—a valuable corrective to U.S.-centric scholarship that may not do justice to the internal dynamics of foreign states, including the personalities and policies of significant individuals. Furthermore, the editors have selected authors who are...
