ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book emerges from our belief in the value of exploring US-Latin American relationships over the long period from the nineteenth century to the contemporary moment. It explains how studying US-Latin American relations provides a key to understanding the totality of US foreign relations. The United States and Latin America are not uniform bodies, but complex entities made up of people who have viewed the world in different ways. Latin Americans imported all manner of US consumer and cultural products, which changed ideas about identity and society. Through the twentieth century, the United States consistently had a larger economy and a bigger military than Latin American countries. Latin Americans imported all manner of US consumer and cultural products, which changed ideas about identity and society.
