Copiously annotated and based upon a wide range of secondary studies and official documents, both printed and manuscript, this thoughtful and clearly written study by Michael J. Francis examines the relations of the United States with Argentina and Chile during World War II as a case study of “the limits of hegemony.” He has resisted the temptation to theorize in the belief that the major theories of foreign policy are poorly developed and has “approached the subject in a relatively traditional manner.” The product is “a decision making study on the United States side,” while on the Argentine and Chilean side “the emphasis is on the domestic politics” (p. 3), with due attention to international factors. His allocation of space naturally favors much more populous and wealthy Argentina.

Despite his reservations about the value of comparative studies in this field at the present time, Francis makes some interesting comparisons of his own, notably the one on pp. 245-246, between the upper class of Chile and the Argentine elite. The former’s dependence on the United States for purchases of copper and nitrates, he points out, made it “an almost classic case of the clientele elite,” whereas the Argentine elite was more complicated and more dependent on England. In this connection, however, I find no discussion here of Fredrick B. Pike’s proposition, in his notable study of Chile and the United States, 1880-1960, that the Chilean elite was a main source of anti-Americanism in that country. As a rule, Francis is strong on details as well as on large problems. An exception is his exaggeration (p. 5) of the belief in U.S. “academic circles” that U.S. and Latin American interests are the same. Also, while he may be correct in attributing to almost all the Department of State’s senior Latin Americanists except Sumner Welles (p. 203), the authorship of Secretary of State Hull’s scorching reply to a note from Argentine Foreign Minister Storni, I clearly recall that when in 1946 I asked Welles who wrote the reply to Storni, he replied, “I did,” and to my inquiry whether he had any regrets, his answer was in effect, “None. It was the only reply we could give.”