Long before sea power, the Panama Canal, and petroleum drew the world's attention to the Caribbean coast, United States leaders recognized Venezuela's potential as the linchpin of the Caribbean's southern rim. In Venezuela and the United States, Judith Ewell provides a historical analysis of the main themes and directions of U.S.-Venezuelan relations from the early 1800s, when Simon Bolivar declared an American Republican identity and Monroe proclaimed U.S. responsibility for the hemisphere to the present, when Venezuelan relations with the United States reflect the growing importance of the developing world and its multilateral challenges to U.S. global hegemony. Authoritatively treating the political, economic, and cross-cultural dynamics of two nations, Ewell approaches her subject from both a Venezuelan and U.S. perspective. Her careful understanding of conflicting interests and purposes shows how other players, from Great Britain to OPEC, have affected the course of the nations' diplomatic relationship. Ewell demonstrates that Venezuela's two-hundred-year history with the United States reflects all of the key moments and issues in inter-American relations, from the Roosevelt and Olney Corollaries to the Monroe Doctrine, the Good Neighbor Policy, the Cold War, the North-South dialogues, the debt controversies, and the post-Cold War era. Using popular literature, folklore, and travel accounts, Ewell examines how Venezuelans and yanquis have perceived each other over the years and relates how the strong U.S. presence in business and popular culture has created in Venezuelans feelings of both love and hatred for the ""American way of life."" The author argues, however, that in a hemisphere clearly dominated by the U.S., a new international order has arisen, giving weak nations like Venezuela greater influence while creating a complex mosaic of alliances. A model history of binational relations, Venezuela and the United States captures both the drama and the significance of the two nations' diplomatic affairs.

Reworks classic biographical approach to social-political history. Covers 1780 to present. Intended for the classroom"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

This unique collection emphasizes the human element in the study of Latin American history by focusing on the lives of twenty-three men, women, and children. Though they differ widely from each other in background and circumstance, these individuals share a common experience: all are caught up in some way by the profound, sometimes devastating, changes that accompany the modernization of a traditional society. Their stories bring vividly to life the impact that revolution, economic upheaval, urbanization, destruction of community life, and the disruption of family and gender roles have on ordinary people. These studies also bring out the various ways, often creative and courageous, in which Latin Americans have coped with the fortunes and vicissitudes of 'progress.'

In 1963, after four years of hearings in this country, Venezuelan former president Marcos Perez Jimenez was extradited from the United States to his homeland, where a five-year-long trial before that country's supreme court found him guilty of misusing Venezuela's wealth. This book outlines the early career and dictatorial government of Perez Jimenez and the efforts of his rival and eventual successor, Romulo Betancourt, to hold him legally responsible for his abuses of power.
Among the conclusions drawn from the case, Judith Ewell shows that the effort to hold a former dictator responsible for his crimes can help legitimize the new revolutionary government, that U.S. cooperation depends more on its foreign policy of the moment than on the merits of the legal case, that extradition of a former head of state always has political overtones in spite of the statutory crimes charged, that a long trial can unexpectedly portray the former dictator as a victim and revive his political popularity, and that the former dictator's eventual return to power depends more on his own tenacity, political acumen, and will than on the nature of the crimes he committed or the skill of his opposition.

Valuable work explores the evolution of US-Venezuelan relations in terms of 'core cultural values' and disparities of power. Argues that the relationship between Venezuela and the US should take into account the vision and values of Venezuela, and that US relations with Venezuela represent a microcosm of all outstanding issues between Latin America and its northern neighbor"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.