In this study, Healy explores terrain already well traversed by specialists. He analyzes the underlying reasons for U.S. Caribbean policy during the period when the United States gained regional dominance, concentrating on Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Panama. In addition, he examines the behavior of U.S. diplomats, military officers, and businessmen in those countries, and assesses the ultimate U.S. impact on Caribbean societies.
Following current scholarly convention, Healy offers a devastating indictment of many aspects of U.S. policy. He condemns the pervasive ethnocentrism, arrogance, and racism displayed, emphasizing that Washington and its representatives too often treated Latin Americans with contempt. Nor did the promised benefits of tutelage materialize. Military reform failed to create apolitical armed forces; electoral reform did not yield genuine democracy; Yankee economic enterprise and dollars never generated prosperity. Indeed, U.S. hegemony left only poor, dependent states, and sowed the seeds for subsequent turbulence.
Yet Healy takes pains to differentiate his bleak picture from that drawn by radical revisionists and dependency theorists. Acknowledging the liberal dose of economic self-interest always present in U.S. policy, he also identifies idealism and security fears as its driving forces. The author contends that the region’s undeniable poverty and dependence cannot be attributed exclusively to U.S. penetration. The Imperium in the Caribbean, he concludes, was certainly no harsher than European imperial rule elsewhere: “On the whole, it left more political authority to local societies and used less military force than comparable European hegemonies” (p. 289).
Essentially synthetic, Drive to Hegemony taps few fresh sources and contains few new revelations. The book, nonetheless, should prove a useful compendium for experts and a stimulating text for courses in inter-American affairs (particularly if issued in paper). The author’s effort to achieve a balanced perspective can be used to stimulate lively classroom debate about imperialism, development, and dependency.
