How the dissemination of Latin American literature in the U.S. was "caught between the desire to support the literary revolution of the Boom writers and the fear of revolutionary politics" (John King).

Patrick Iber tells the story of left-wing Latin American artists, writers, and scholars who worked as diplomats, advised rulers, opposed dictators, and even led nations during the Cold War. Ultimately, they could not break free from the era’s rigid binaries, and found little room to promote their social democratic ideals without compromising them.

The dominant tradition in writing about U.S.–Latin American relations during the Cold War views the United States as all-powerful. That perspective, represented in the metaphor “talons of the eagle,” continues to influence much scholarly work down to the present day. The goal of this collection of essays is not to write the United States out of the picture but to explore the ways Latin American governments, groups, companies, organizations, and individuals promoted their own interests and perspectives. The book also challenges the tendency among scholars to see the Cold War as a simple clash of “left” and “right.” In various ways, several essays disassemble those categories and explore the complexities of the Cold War as it was experienced beneath the level of great-power relations.

The dominant tradition in writing about U.S.-Latin American relations during the Cold War views the United States as all-powerful. That perspective, represented in the metaphor "talons of the eagle," continues to influence much scholarly work down to the present day. The goal of this collection of essays is not to write the United States out of the picture but to explore the ways Latin American governments, groups, companies, organizations, and individuals promoted their own interests and perspectives. The book also challenges the tendency among scholars to see the Cold War as a simple clash of "left" and "right." In various ways, several essays disassemble those categories and explore the complexities of the Cold War as it was experienced beneath the level of great-power relations.

DIVReexamines the Cold War in Latin America by shifting the focus away from superpower decision-making and exploring the many ways in which Latin American leaders and ordinary people used, manipulated, shaped, and were victimized by the Cold War./div

In the decade from the early 1960s to the early 1970s, Latin American authors found themselves writing for a new audience in both Latin America and Spain and in an ideologically charged climate as the Cold War found another focus in the Cuban Revolution. The writers who emerged in this energized cultural moment--among others, Julio Cortázar (Argentina), Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba), José Donoso (Chile), Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), Manuel Puig (Argentina), and Mario Varas Llosa (Peru)--experimented with narrative forms that sometimes bore a vexed relation to the changing political situations of Latin America. This volume provides a wide range of options for teaching the complexities of the Boom, explores the influence of Boom works and authors, presents different frameworks for thinking about the Boom, proposes ways to approach it in the classroom, and provides resources for selecting materials for courses.

This book seeks to address US public diplomacy strategies in Latin America, of particular importance during the 1960s when the leadership of the United States had been questioned after the Cuban Revolution. The implicit mandate was "No more Cubas" so that what happened in the Caribbean country would not spread to other countries. The actions of the United States toward its southern neighbors in the first half of the twentieth century are quite well known. In contrast, Latin American scenarios of the Cultural Cold War have remained relatively less well known. The contributors and editors of this volume examine various facets and means of action used by the "US machinery of persuasion" with the aim of disseminating the virtues of its socioeconomic and political model, including both public and private efforts, and the significance of nonstate actors. Subjects examined include the impact of the theory of modernization; anti-Americanism; the deployment of public diplomacy in the region; the activities of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Rockefeller Foundation; and the influence of these efforts on sporting, artistic, and musical events. This volume will be of value to students and scholars alike interested in Latin American history and history of the Americas.