Reviews 171

exclusively with the revolutionaries. The biographical sketches of leading figures

are an especial distinction. It is good to see Calles given his due as the principal
revolutionary architect in the years of greater stability. Portes Gil also receives a
balanced treatment. Cardenas is rightly cut down to size. The greatest defect of
the book, in our opinion, is that virtually nothing is said about that arch-
Machiavellian of them all, Benito Juarez, one of the most characteristic and most
successful of Mexican political figures.
University of Strathclyde BRIAN HAMNETT

Philip S. Foner: The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth o)

American Imperialism (2 vols., New York, Monthly Review Press, 1973,
£4-50 each). Pp. xxxiv + 716.
Professor Foner has already written a two-volume study of relations between
Cuba and the United States in the period from 1492 to 1895. He now presents two
more volumes on the much narrower period from the outbreak of the second war
for Cuban independence in 1895 t o l t n e establishment of the Cuban republic in
1902.
The existing historical literature on this period is quite extensive, but in his
view the contribution of American historians represents a ' shocking state of
affairs'. These historians have for too long ignored and neglected the Cuban
contribution to the events of this critical period, and it is Foner's intention to
redress the balance away from a concentration wholly on American sources to a
balanced investigation including both American and Cuban sources.
Unfortunately, he does not provide a bibliography, but his footnotes reveal an
impressive amount of research ranging widely from Washington to Havana and
including many manuscript collections in the United States. His contribution to
the debate on American imperialism is consequently not only both stimulating
and controversial but scholarly too.
The value of his research in Cuba is seen in his revisionist account of the
Cubans' own contribution to the winning of their independence. Most American
historians have rarely mentioned these Cuban efforts save in contemptuous terms,
but in Foner's view the Cubans fought heroically and successfully against the
vastly superior military advantages of the Spanish army. There are exciting
chapters on the heroism and military skill of Antonio Maceo and Maximo G6mez
and he argues persuasively that, since the Cubans were ultimately certain to
triumph, American military and economic aid to the Cubans would have secured
Cuban independence without the need for United States military intervention.
His chapter on the American intervention also includes impressive evidence to
show the not insignificant military contribution that the Cubans made towards
the capture of Santiago. ' Spanish-American war' is therefore a misnomer. It
should be changed, as, indeed, Samuel F. Bemis once proposed, to the ' Spanish-
Cuban-American war'.
Professor Foner's treatment of the American military occupation in Cuba also
breaks much new ground, and especially interesting is his critical view of
Governor-General Leonard Wood whose integrity and achievements are somewhat
questioned. He also provides new information on Cuban politics and society after

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 172 Journal of Latin American Studies

1898, the deliberations of the Cuban constitutional convention and the formulation
and acceptance of the controversial Platt amendment.
To present a corrective version to the view that only by means of American
intervention did the Cubans win their independence is only one of Professor
Foner's aims. His central thesis is to argue that the American decision to inter-
vene in 1898 marked ' the birth of American imperialism '. The root cause of
American intervention was the rise of monopoly capitalism and its drive for
markets. Cuba provided an opportunity to establish ' the prototype for American
imperialism ' and Cuba, therefore, became the victim of aggressive American
capitalists who flooded into the island during the military occupation. Cuba under
the Platt amendment enjoyed only a nominal independence and became the model
for American neo-colonialism; in Foner's words, Cuba was ' a bridgehead for the
conquest of the West Indies and Latin America '.
Marxist and economic interpretations of American foreign policy have not
been uncommon in American historical writing and are today reflected in the
writings of the ' New Left' and the ' economic determinists'. In fact, Professor
Foner devotes a number of pages to a critical survey of the historical literature
concerning the American decision to intervene in 1898 and this is a valuable part
of his study. His own explanation of American policy stresses the predominance
of economic factors; he mentions political, social and psychological factors only to
dismiss them. The evidence that is presented for this point of view is, however,
not substantial enough. Circumstantial evidence abounds: we are told of the
activities of the Sugar Trust and of American businessmen such as Edwin F.
Atkins when circumstances require it, e.g. the decision to intervene and the later
debate over reciprocity, but there is no detailed analysis of the nature or the exact
extent of their influence upon the McKinley administration. Similarly, an impres-
sive number of newspaper sources and public speeches are cited to substantiate
the ' imperialistic plans ' of the McKinley administration, but there is no in-
depth analysis of the personalities and the decision-making processes within the
administration. It is surely not enough to explain away the policies of Elihu
Root on the grounds that he was ' a member of the dominant monopoly
capitalist class of the United States '.
The logic of the economic determinist view turns the policy of the McKinley
administration into an inevitable capitalist conspiracy designed to further the ends
of American imperialism. But how far was the administration in control of events
and of the political processes in the United States? The timing of the decision to
intervene was certainly within the power of the administration, but was executive
influence over congressional activity always so decisive as Professor Foner implies?
No doubt, Senator Platt and the McKinley administration shared similar views
on Cuban affairs, but Plan's appointment as Chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee was not the prerogative of the administration which is what
Professor Foner suggests. His Marxist viewpoint leads him into other controversial
statements. In order to condemn American policy as imperialist and anti-
revolutionary throughout the 1890s he asserts that the United States supported
' Balmaceda and feudalists' against the ' Congressional Party and its revolu-
tionary supporters', and that in January 1894 Cleveland intervened against the
Brazilian ' revolutionaries'.
A single-cause explanation too often distorts the past. An example of this has

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 Boo\ Reviews 173

been the one-sided American interpretation of events in 1898 which has prevented
a fair appraisal of Cuba's own efforts to win her freedom. Professor Foner's
two volumes are, therefore, a valuable contribution to the historical literature in
English on the subject. But because his impressive array of American and Cuban
historical sources is not combined with a detailed analysis of decision-making in
Washington, his Marxist interpretation of the events of these years will only be
fully convincing to those already sympathetic to the economic-determinist view-
point.
University of Exeter JOSEPH SMITH

Henry Stanley Ferns: The Argentine Republic 1^16-igyi (Newton Abbott,

David & Charles, and New York, Barnes and Nobel Books, 1973, X475)- ^P-
212.

Miguel Murmis, Juan Carlos Portantiero: Estudios sobre los origenes del
peronismo 1 (Siglo XXI, Argentina Editores S.A., 1971, n.p.s.). Pp. 129.
Marta Panaia, Ricardo Lesser, Pedro Skupch: Estudios sobre los origenes del
peronismo 2 (Siglo XXI, Argentina Editores S.A., 1973, n.p.s.). Pp. 164.
One of the engaging features of Professor Fern's works on Argentina is his readi-
ness to propound strong conceptual interpretations and uncomprising ideas. In his
previous book he argued implicitly that the trouble with Argentina is that it is not
like Canada. The present work advances the related proposition that the republic
is too much like pre-Opus Dei Spain. In Canada people work; in Argentina they
do not.
While economic history suggests that men do tend to improve their capacity to work and to
cooperate and hence to produce more and more, there is no reason in principle why the oppo-
site should not happen and rhe evidence suggests that it can happen. Social and political
history, as distinct from economic history, suggest that the disposition to work and to improve
the power to work, to cooperate and improve the means of cooperation are not general and
universal propensities. Men and women can employ their ingenuity and energy in seeking to
live without productive tasks and they often succeed. There is, indeed, a disposition to regard
productive work as contemptible, undignified and unworthy of men and women aspiring to a
civilised condition (pp. 9—10).

The book is almost a re-statement of the long-standing thesis that the Hispanic
tradition is the main obstacle to economic progress. Argentina was successful in
the classical period of ' easy growth' but was subsequently unwilling to impose
the more arduous requisites for development under modern conditions. Nine chap-
ters elaborate the aphorism that there is no such thing as a free lunch while a con-
cluding parable re-emphasizes Argentine reluctance to work. The striking feature
of the whole study is the unimportance ascribed to Peronism compared to this
theme in accounting for the current economic stagnation of Argentina.
In contrast, the tendency of younger scholars, both in Argentina and abroad,
is to give primacy to Peronism in explaining the modern economic history of the
republic, and recent ideas on the subject may be grouped under two versions. The
first is that the republic was successful for as long as the Anglo-Argentine Con-
nexion persisted; Peronism broke that mutually beneficial relationship and nip-

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