ABSTRACT
I n the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Western Hemisphere appeared far removed from the centre of international relations. Having removed the yoke of European imperialism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
(with some exceptions, most notably Canada), the countries of North, Central and South America had played a minor role in the rivalries between the European powers. Even the United States was too preoccupied with its own continental expansion and the Civil War (1861-65) to pay much interest to the old continent, let alone Asia or Africa. Yet, as the century drew to a close, the United States emerged as an increasingly influential player in international affairs. During the first half of the twentieth century that role would be secured and enhanced to the point that, in 1945, the United States became the most powerful nation on earth.
