A whole new world?

• Author: Perry, William J.

Michael Wood, Conquistadors (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 288 pp., $27.

Robert Harvey, Liberators: Latin America's Struggle for Independence, 1810-1830 (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2000), 561 pp., $40.

Octavio Paz, translated by Jason Wilson, preface by Charles Tomlinson, Itinerary: An Intellectual Journey (New York: Harcourt, 1999), 129 pp., $22.

Howard Wiarda, The Soul of Latin America: the Cultural and Political Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 417 pp., $35.

GEORGE W. BUSH has seized enthusiastically upon what had initially been his father's concept--a comprehensive Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)--as, hopefully, one of the most personal hallmarks of his presidency. At a summit of hemispheric leaders in Quebec this April, general agreement was secured for conclusion of such an historic accord by January 1, 2005--with universal ratification to follow by the end of that year. If successful, this process would make NAFTA the world's largest trading bloc, comprised of some 900 million people and boasting a combined annual GDP approaching $10 trillion. Even more fundamentally, by laying the basis for an evermore integrated Western Hemisphere community of nations, it would imply a considerable revision of past U.S. geostrategic priorities (traditionally oriented across the Atlantic toward Europe), over the course of the new century (and era) that we are now entering.

The original impetus for this visionary construct came at a time of unusual optimism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, almost anything seemed possible. Meanwhile, on the hemispheric scene, an irresistible tide seemed to favor democratic government and the free-market economic model--something that Washington wished to encourage both to ensure local stability and to strengthen its own position in the competitive world of the future. Since that time, however, the United States--while doing much better economically vis-a-vis Europe and Asia than was generally expected--has come to confront several perplexing and perilous new difficulties around the globe, dramatically highlighted by the horrific events of September 11. In Latin America, the administration now faces a fresh constellation of social, economic, security and political problems that threaten the future of democracy and the free market in the region, and that generate both direct and indirect dangers for the United Sta tes. Moreover, on the domestic front, there is an increasingly visible resistance to commercial integration--especially within developing countries (and, indeed, with respect to globalization generally)--that progressively paralyzed progress toward a comprehensive, inter-American trade zone during the Clinton years.

It is therefore time for a deeper consideration of the basis for an ambitious, long-term policy that envisages ever-greater integration of the United States with its hemispheric neighbors. The historic experience of Latin America over the past five centuries is markedly different from that of the United States and Canada. In creating any sort of hemisphere-wide association, therefore, a better appreciation of what makes Latin America distinctive from its northern neighbors is critical. In this regard, four new books, each addressing a particular facet in the history and development of Latin America, can help us.

Conquistadors, by Michael Wood, highlights the epic saga of how Latin America's most advanced native civilizations were subjugated by...