Unequal giants : diplomatic relations between the United States and Brazil, 1889-1930
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Unequal giants : diplomatic relations between the United States and Brazil, 1889-1930
(Pitt Latin American series)
University of Pittsburgh Press, c1991
Available at 4 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
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  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
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  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
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  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-288) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In 1889 the Brazilian empire was overthrown by a military coup and a republic was declared. This dramatic event inaugurated a new awareness in the United States of its giant "sister republic" in South America. In this study of diplomatic relations, Joseph Smith aims to fill a significant gap in the literature and offers a case study of US policy in the hemisphere. It has long been axiomatic to regard the United States and Brazil as natural friends and allies. Yet Smith's research in American, British, and Brazilian archives shows that, in reality, diplomatic relations between the republics were characterized as much by conflict as by harmony. The goodwill and assistance of the United States proved valuable in helping to protect the infant republic from both internal and external threats, and Brazil's decision to enter World War I on the side of the Allies pleased the United States. But America's apparently irresistible political and economic advance in Brazil was persistently hampered by disagreements. Smith argues that the idea of an equal relationship always enjoyed much more currency in Brazil than in the United States.
He concludes that it was more than a useful pretence that served the ambitions and vanities of Brazil's ruling elite and provided the United States with a means of securing a cooperative instrument to divide and rule in Latin America. The underlying reality was that the two giants were truly unequal.
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