Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America, The

The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America, by Nancy Mitchell. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press, distributed by Scholarly Book Services, 1999. xiv, 312 pp. $82.50 Cdn (cloth), $32.95 Cdn (paper).

Distinguishing the opportunistic rhetoric of diplomats from their real intentions and actions surely must count as one of the most difficult tasks facing students of international relations. Nancy Mitchell attempts to untangle these complicated issues through a case study of U.S. perceptions of the German threat in Latin America during the early twentieth century. U.S. intervention in Central America and the Caribbean has traditionally been excused as a necessary evil in a heroic struggle against a budding German empire. This rationalization undergirds the legend of American exceptionalism, which insists that the United States was unique in world history because it did not practice imperialism out of self-interest. Mitchell explodes this myth by showing that, despite much bluffing, Germany never seriously contested the Monroe Doctrine. The German threat did, however, conveniently allow the United States to portray itself as the saviour of Latin America while justifying the extension of U.S. hegemony into the region.

Mitchell admits that Washington had some legitimate concerns about German expansionism. Kaiser Wilhelm II's policy of Weltpolitic clearly aimed at world domination. The German navy, which multiplied into a world-class fleet by the end of the late nineteenth century, concocted daring plans to invade the Caribbean and assault New York City. German ambitions of conquering the Western Hemisphere, however, soon proved unrealistic. U.S. victory in the Spanish-American-Cuban-- Filipino War demonstrated decisively that Germany could not expect to challenge the United States in its own sphere of influence. European affairs remained Germany's top priority, while the United States, which had no strong enemies along its borders, could dispatch troops to Latin America without having to worry about being invaded. Mitchell shows that despite the bombast of German jingoes, Berlin was extremely careful not to antagonize Washington over Latin America. Germany followed England's lead, for example, in the 1902-3 Venezuelan crisis, and eventually agreed to a U.S. proposal to end the dispute through peaceful arbitration. In Brazil, where Germany made one of its strongest thrusts into Latin America, German immigrants professed greater loyalty to the Brazilian state than to the kaiser. Even the historical significance of the Zimmermann telegram, Mitchell asserts, has been highly overrated. Germany lacked the means to defend its relatively minor commercial interests in Mexico, and the kaiser bent over backwards to accommodate Wilson's vacillating policy toward the Mexican Revolution.

The Danger of Dreams provides a valuable corrective to textbook narratives that repeat the conventional pretexts offered by diplomats for U.S. intervention in Latin America. In clear, colorful prose, Mitchell deftly debunks the German threat using an impressive array of archival materials from Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. Especially valuable are political cartoons which bolster her contention that cultural biases helped foster international misperceptions. Although Mitchell cites few primary sources from Latin America, she demonstrates a thorough awareness of Latin American historiography. Brazilians, Venezuelans, and Mexicans, while not the centre of her story, do not appear as passive victims caught in a struggle between two great powers. Nor is U.S. hegemony exaggerated. She observes, for example, that foreigners did not determine the outcome of the Mexican Revolution, which had its own internal dynamic.

In addition to exposing the myth of the German threat in Latin America, this book makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the role of culture and ideology in international relations. Without excusing or ignoring the rationality of imperialism, Mitchell has revealed how both German and U.S. misperceptions complicated the task of building an empire in Latin America. Because jingoes, diplomats, navy captains, and journalists offered widely diverging views of the enemy, U.S. and German leaders found it difficult to construct a consistent foreign policy. Mitchell rightly observes that it is probably impossible to determine the sincerity of U.S. officials when they inflated the German threat. More important, conjuring up a bellicose image of Germany met the heartfelt need of Americans to see themselves as the "last best hope of humankind, the bastion of freedom" (p. 224).

One minor weakness of the book is that the lengthy presentation of events leading up to the Zimmermann telegram is not followed by a discussion of the telegram itself. Readers expecting a complete explanation of the episode will be disappointed. Also, a fuller review of the theoretical literature on decision-making and bureaucratic politics would have enriched the analysis of threat perception and helped to place this case study into a broader historical context. U.S. exaggerations of the German threat during the Big Stick era, for example, bear a striking resemblance to U.S. exaggerations of the Soviet threat during the Cold War. Hopefully, this well-researched and skillfully argued monograph will inspire scholars to apply similar methodology and reasoning to other countries and historical periods.