The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to the Present

When Bolivia's revolutionaries took power in 1952, the United States, fresh from victory in the Second World War and the success of the Marshall Plan, saw a chance to remake an Andean nation through economic aid. Bolivia became the first of these nation-building experiments, and James F. Siekmeier shows that the smaller country was far from a passive recipient. Its governments struck compromises with Washington, pushed back, and at times shaped American policy through their own choices.

Where most accounts of the Revolution stop early, Siekmeier follows the relationship through the early 1970s and beyond. He traces how it shifted over decades and why the election of Evo Morales in 2006 marked a return to the spirit of 1952. A clear, thoughtful study for anyone curious about the limits of American power in Latin America.