This major new reference surveys political parties of importance in the Americas since 1980, with the exclusion of the United States. This one-volume work is part of "The Greenwood Historical Encyclopedia of the World's Political Parties "and has been fashioned both to update Robert J. Alexander's prize-winning two-volume set published in 1982, "Political Parties of the AmericaS," and to serve as an analysis of political development and political parties in the Western Hemisphere during the last decade, an encyclopedia that can stand on its own. Like other works in this series, this volume edited by Charles D. Ameringer is intended for college, university, institutional, and public libraries.

Following a brief introduction giving some general historical background, chapters on 49 countries in North and South America and in the Caribbean are arranged alphabetically. These chapters provide some historical information, short bibliographies, and then describe political parties and current developments of note. Parties are arranged alphabetically by their English names or translations. Internal cross-references and a full index make the volume easily accessible to researchers in different fields. A chronology points to dates of importance.

A tale of adventure and intrigue, The Caribbean Legion studies the political struggles of the peoples of Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua in the years following World War II. Taking their inspiration from the D-day-style invasions of occupied Europe, groups of political exiles organized a series of armed expeditions that kept the Caribbean in turmoil for five years. Although their actions were independent, the groups became known collectively as the ''Caribbean Legion.''

Charles D. Ameringer examines the myth and reality of the Caribbean Legion, as well as the evolving foreign policy of the United States. Faced with the contradiction between the promotion of representative democracy and the principle of nonintervention, the United States tolerated dictatorship in the postwar Caribbean, which eventually led to serious consequences such as the Cuban Revolution.

Ameringer utilizes never-before-consulted documents from 1949 and 1950 on ''the situation in the Caribbean'' from the Inter-American Peace Committee of the Organization of American States. Accordingly, The Caribbean Legion presents new information and documentation on the difficulties, complexities, and costs of organizing armed uprisings from exile, the purposes and actions of pro-democratic Caribbean exiles and their allies and sponsors, and US policy toward Latin America in the early Cold War period.