Recorded live at AS220 on October 11th 2006

1933 - Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's anti-interventionist shift in Central and South America aimed to ease authoritarian relations with a promise to substitute mutual respect and economic integration for military invasion. Today, with Latin-American leaders thumbing their noses at US aid, it's not just the US deciding who's friend or foe. What did FDR really want to accomplish with this policy and how successful was he? How has our nations relationship to our southern neighbors evolved since 1933? Will the abundant oil and natural resources of South America be the ultimate leveler between the US and countries south of the border?

PANELISTS:

photo Viera Levitt

Ernesto Stein, Ph.D. is the Lead Research Economist at Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he specializes in international trade and finance and industrial organization. A decorated economist, his career spans 25 years and includes such awards as a Ford foundation Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, and a Journal of Development Economics Prize for best dissertation in the area of Development Economics, among others. He has been a referee for Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of International Economics, and many more.

Charlotte Dennett and Gerard Colby are the co-authors of Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. Ms. Dennett is an attorney and has been an investigative author for over thirty years. Her writings cover a spectrum of social issues including genocide in Latin America, pollution, and women's rights among others. Mr. Colby served as the President of the US National Writers Union and is the author of several investigative books including, Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press and Du Pont: Behind the Nylon Curtain.

Greg Grandin is a Professor of History at New York University and the author of Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. He has published articles on revolution, US-Latin American relations, and human rights among others, and has edited a book on twentieth-century Latin American revolutionary violence. His first book was awarded the Bryce Wood Award for most outstanding book in English in the humanities and social sciences on Latin America, by the Latin American Studies Association.