Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Rodriguez Beruff (Univ. of Puerto Rico) is a prolific historian of militarism--specifically, the military importance of Puerto Rico to the US--who has been critical of US policy in the Caribbean and Latin America. He writes that Puerto Rico is part of the system of defense of the Panama Canal and its trade lanes and serves as a base of operations for invasions in the Caribbean region. Rodriguez Beruff continues this theme by looking critically at Puerto Rico on the advent of WW II and the policies of the Roosevelt administration. His arguments are put in the context of US history and the colonial mentality of its military caretakers, traceable back to the wars between Europeans and American Indians and the various interventions in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Rodriguez Beruff shows the complicity of Puerto Rican parties in the pocket of the sugar corporations that supported the corrupt administration of Blanton Winship (1934-39), responsible for the Ponce Massacre (1937). The account ends with the appointment of Admiral William D. Leahy (1939-40) and the rise of Luis Munoz Marin and the Partido Popular. This solid book gives the ins and out of Puerto Rican politics and uncovers the collusion of many well-regarded Euramerican liberals in the continued oppression of Puerto Ricans. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. R. Acuna California State University, Northridge