Greg Grandin is a professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of seven books, including The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, which won a Pulitzer Prize, and Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic, rereleased in a new and updated paperback edition in 2021.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration used Central America as a testing ground to rehabilitate US imperial “hard power” after defeat in Vietnam. The results were predictable: death squads, massacres, and murderous repression of left-wing movements.
From ousting of Árbenz to Allende and now Morales, Latin America has seen a lot of right-wing coups. Here’s historian Greg Grandin with some tips on how to understand what you’re seeing in Bolivia today.
In his new book, historian Greg Grandin shows why an expanding American empire has required an increasingly militarized border. And why America’s founding frontier myth is finally coming to an end.
The United States’ dependence on the labor of immigrants is exactly what confirms their rights. And that’s the last thing the Donald Trumps of the world want to confront.
When it comes to imperialism, Latin America never forgets, and the United States never remembers.
Henry Kissinger dismissed facts and data in favor of grandiose notions of moral power.
Our notions of freedom emerge from and depend on slavery.