Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

I was really interested in learning about this period of our history. I had heard part of a presentation by the author on CSPAN and decided to get the book. The idea of US banks going into Latin America and the Caribbean as part of our foreign policy in the late 1800s and first half of the 20th century would be tied to racism is not surprising. I expected this book to explore this part of our history. Unfortunately, reading it, I was constantly seeing red flags. Assumptions were made with no proof offered. There seemed to be a lot of circular arguments. The proof offered in endnotes and references was scant. There was no discussion of the broader social context to inform the reader.I am not really challenging the authors conclusions, in fact I have nothing to doubt his analysis is accurate, but that is the point. There is little proof supporting and of primary charges the author makes. There are hints of much more information that didn't make it into the book. Maybe the author's PHD thesis presented all the evidence and this book was "dumbed" down to appeal to a broader audience, but if so, I think his editing choices are quite poor.There is so much potential in this subject, but what was delivered was mostly a disjointed attack on the nature of random bankers; no economic analysis of what occurred; and little to no analysis of the social/political/economic forces at play in the various countries covered. While much was made of the racist behavior of rich bankers, this is hardly surprising to anyone who has looked at American history in this period.The text shows no attempt at objective analysis. There is a lack of empirical data. Everything I learned that was important in professional social science research. Boiled down, the author states that evil white bankers,back by the US government, exploited and stole from poor blacks and Hispanics, because they were white racists.While reading the book, I continually found myself noting faulty logic, lack of evidence, huge leaps in logic, or stunning bias. I wanted to learn about this subject, in the end I learned how far academic research has fallen.If this text represents the best research and analytical skills of the author, then we have to wonder how UCLA justifies in employing him as a history professor.

I like that the information that it has is pretty straight forward

As promised

This Book is a Good Read!It is well written and really gives good insight into how money was used in Colonization and how the affects of money affect colonized people then and now. I would highly recommend it!

Very interesting read and supported with factual data. Good book and have recommended to my colleagues.