From Development to Dictatorship

Thomas C. Field Jr. reconstructs the untold story of USAID's first years in Bolivia, including the country's 1964 military coup d’état.

Thomas C. Field Jr. is Assistant Professor of Global Security and Intelligence Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Field has written an excellent book on two key areas of US foreign relations: the history of development and USA–Latin American relations. Even as the majority of works on development focus on the non-Latin American parts of the Third World, Field shows the reader the importance of understanding how economic development worked or did not work during the 'high tide' of the implementation of Modernization Theory in Latin America.

Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera:

This is very well written with primary sources, not classic leftist cliché, but with declassified documents, USAID reports, and US government reports. Thomas Field paints the portrait of a Bolivian government genuflecting before foreign imposition. I want to congratulate him for this study. It's like reading a novel, which is why I was able to read it so quickly. It takes you in quickly.

J. P. Dunn:

This is international history at its best with insight that has implications well beyond the immediate country. Highly recommended.

Mark Seddon:

Field's extensive multi-archival research allows him to provide a highly detailed account of Bolivia's military rebellion and the government's overthrow in 1964 and incorporate the perspectives of various actors into his analysis. He persuasively argues that, in Bolivia, US implementation of the Alliance for Progress was contingent on an 'approach that was authoritarian from the beginning' and can best be characterized as 'arrogant interventionism, backed up cynically by the language of development and modernization.' Field's comprehensive use of archival material has enabled him to produce a compelling case study of the Alliance for Progress that provides new insights into the causal link between development and authoritarianism. His nuanced analysis has resulted in insightful conclusions that reveal the important intersection of ideology and strategy within Cold War international relations.

Andrew J. Kirkendall:

Field shows how U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding was employed to arm peasant militias against militant miners, all in the name of development. Field's book is well-researched and his work benefits from a deep engagement with Bolivia.

Stephen M. Streeter:

Field emphasizes that it was Washington's relentless promotion of modernization schemes by any means necessary that drove Bolivia to the brink of civil war. This superb study serves as a model for future explorations of the Alliance for Progress in Latin America.

Philip E. Muehlenbeck:

A tremendous contribution to the historiography.

Thomas Tunstall Allcock:

A splendid piece of scholarship. Extensively and inventively researched, engagingly narrated, and consistently thought-provoking, this is an example of international history at its best... gripping in a manner that is rarely found in academic studies... a highly impressive achievement.

Amy C. Offner:

A compelling local portrait of the violence that anticommunist development brought on the Bolivian left, the fracturing of the country's nationalist and revolutionary parties under the pressures of U.S. intervention, and the forms of political mobilization that the Bolivian state fought and cultivated in the Andean mines and villages.

Erik Loomis, author of Out of Sight: The Long and Disturbing Story of Corporations Outsourcing Catastrophe, on the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog:

Thomas Field's new book on the Alliance for Progress in Bolivia demonstrates just how comfortable America's Cold War foreign policy establishment was with dictatorship as its preferred method of rule in Latin America. Dictatorship and development became the twin pillars of the Alliance for Progress, Field's important book demonstrates. These sorts of historical narratives are necessary for modern readers to understand the roots of American foreign policy problems today.

Carlos Mesa, Former Bolivian President:

Thomas Field has written a fascinating, original, and impeccably documented book with marked narrative suspense.

Stephen G. Rabe, Ashbel Smith Chair of History, University of Texas at Dallas, author of The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America:

This outstanding book serves as a model for international history. Thomas C. Field Jr. displays a remarkable knowledge of Bolivian history and culture. He further demonstrates that bilateral relations are complex and that generalizations about inter-American relations are often undermined when scholars conduct case studies that are thoroughly grounded in archival sources in both the United States and individual Latin American countries.

Mark Gilderhus, LBJ Chair of HistoryretiredTexas Christian University, author of The Second Century: U.S.-Latin American Relations since 1889:

In From Development to Dictatorship, Thomas C. Field Jr. probes intriguing and important questions about the Alliance for Progress. Field's most impressive archival research in the United States, Bolivia, Great Britain, and France yields magnificent results by providing an exceptionally clear understanding of the actual goals and workings of the Alliance.

Kenneth D. Lehman, Squires Professor of History, Hampden-Sydney College, author of Bolivia and the United States: A Limited Partnership:

From Development to Dictatorship is impressively researched and clearly written and makes significant contributions to the history of Bolivia and U.S. foreign relations in the Kennedy era. Thomas C. Field Jr.'s detailed coverage of this period of Bolivian-U.S. relations sheds light on the direction the Bolivian military took; the role of developmental ideology in Bolivia's drift toward militarism; the influence of the United States in shaping Bolivia's internal political processes; and the ways that the developmental goals of the Alliance for Progress were intimately connected to the anticommunist, militarist, and authoritarian themes of Kennedy/Johnson policies. This is a very strong addition to the literature and our understanding of why Bolivia's revolution ended as it did.

James F. Siekmeier, author of The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to the Present, H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews:

A devastating (and accurate, I would conclude) analysis of U.S./Paz Estenssoro top-down, militaristic-authoritarian development policy. This book is extremely well-researched (the use of interviews and international archives in particular), well-argued, and well-written. Students of Latin American history, development studies, and U.S. foreign relations will benefit from reading this book.

Timothy Naftalico, author of "One Hell of a Gamble":

From Development to Dictatorship will have an influence on more than our understanding of the land that beguiled Che Guevara. The product of remarkable interviews and of deft multi-archive international history, his intricate reconstruction of the Bolivian revolutionary scene in the early 1960s sets a high standard for reaching conclusions about the effect of U.S.-led development in any country at any time. Whether you believe that the 'Best and the Brightest' championed development in the 'Third World' as an act of enlightened self-interest or because of naked imperialism, this book absorbs your attention and makes you reconsider one of the defining impulses of the Kennedy era.