ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the study of the relationship between Latin America and the United States. Prior to World War II, few scholars paid much attention to US-Latin American relations. Historians wrote first and tended to offer up straightforward narrative history. Significantly, US scholars took for granted that the United States was a positive force in the region and that it should intervene for the benefit of Latin American countries. The study of US policy toward Latin America mushroomed after the Cold War began in the late 1940s and for a time scholarly works remained complimentary. Realism emerged as a major theoretical approach in International Relations and was used extensively to explain the relationship between the United States and Latin America. Saving the region from Communism was not the focal point for Latin American scholars. Dependency theory was a Latin American theoretical counterpoint, where US hegemony was explained as a structural outcome of global capitalism.
