Confronting the American Dream: Nicaragua Under U.S. Imperial Rule
Asks how a virulent anti-Americanism developed in a Nicaraguan
society that also seemed to embrace Americanization fervently and
explores the historical roots of this paradox
Michel Gobat deftly interweaves political, economic, cultural, and
diplomatic history to analyze the reactions of Nicaraguans to U.S.
intervention their country from the heyday of Manifest Destiny in
the 1850s through the U.S. occupation of 1912-33. Drawing on
extensive research in Nicaraguan and U.S. archives, Gobat accounts
for two seeming paradoxes that have long eluded historians of Latin
America: that Nicaraguans so strongly embraced U.S. political,
economic, and cultural forms to defend their own nationality
against U.S. imposition and that the country's wealthiest and
most Americanized elites transformed from leading supporters of
U.S. imperial rule into some of its greatest opponents.
Gobat focuses primarily on the reactions of the elites to
Americanization, because they were the Nicaraguans whose power and
identity were the most significantly affected by U.S. imperial
rule. He describes their adoption of aspects of "the American
way of life" in the mid-nineteenth century as strategic rather
than wholesale. Chronicling the U.S. occupation of 1912-33, he
argues that the anti-American turn of Nicaragua's most
Americanized oligarchs stemmed largely from the efforts of U.S.
bankers, marines, and missionaries to spread their own version of
the American dream. In part, the oligarchs' reversal reflected
their anguish over the 1920s rise of Protestantism, the
"modern woman," and other "vices of modernity"
emanating from the United States. But it also responded to the
unintended ways that U.S. modernization efforts enabled peasants to
weaken landlord power. Gobat demonstrates that the U.S. occupation
so profoundly affected Nicaragua that it helped engender the
Sandino Rebellion of 1927-33, the Somoza dictatorship of 1936-79,
and the Sandinista Revolution of 1979-90.
Michel Gobat is Assistant Professor of History at the University of
Iowa.
"This is a beautifully argued and researched book-one of the
most important and revealing case studies we have in U.S.-Latin
American relations. But it goes far beyond that. Without ever
significantly moving past the 1930s, Michel Gobat has provided an
indictment of the early-twenty-first-century embrace of
'American empire' and, in a model of scholarship, provided
stunning insights into the ironies-and tragedies-of the misuse of
U.S. power."-Walter LaFeber, author of America, Russia, and
the Cold War, 1945-2002
"Extraordinarily engaging, Confronting the American Dream is
far and away the best work ever written on the convoluted path of
elite/Conservative disenchantment with the U.S. imperial project in
Nicaragua. Its relevance to broader historical and contemporary
phenomena throughout Latin America and well beyond is really quite
remarkable."- Lowell Gudmundson, coauthor of Central America,
1821-1871: Liberalism before Liberal Reform
"This is a beautifully argued and researched book--one of the most important and revealing case studies we have in U.S.-Latin American relations. But it goes far beyond that. Without ever significantly moving past the 1930s, Michel Gobat has provided an indictment of the early-twenty-first-century embrace of 'American empire' and, in a model of scholarship, provided stunning insights into the ironies--and tragedies--of the misuse of U.S. power."--Walter LaFeber, author of America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2002 "Extraordinarily engaging, Confronting the American Dream is far and away the best work ever written on the convoluted path of elite/Conservative disenchantment with the U.S. imperial project in Nicaragua. Its relevance to broader historical and contemporary phenomena throughout Latin America and well beyond is really quite remarkable."-- Lowell Gudmundson, coauthor of Central America, 1821-1871: Liberalism before Liberal Reform "[A] cautionary tale for current enthusiasts of U.S. empire... As Gobat demonstrates, the more successful the U.S. occupation in achieving its own goals, the more instability it brought..." --Max Paul Friedman, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History "I believe the book provides essential knowledge for historians of Latin American and US foreign involvement ... [T]his book can give broader viewpoints to sociologists and anthropologists interested in social change. Even practitioners of political science will find this book useful..."--Nathan G. Johnson, The Latin Americanist
Michel Gobat is Associate Professor of History at the University of Iowa.
