Description
"John Major has produced a diplomatic historian's history of the United States' Panama Canal policy: meticulously sourced and laden with documentary evidence, this jewel will be the standard on the subject for years to come....Every possible document that is currently available has been used....[and] these many sources are woven into a narrative that is a pleasure to read." Margaret E. Scranton, International History Review
"In reviewing this work, one must begin by congratulating John Major and thanking him for his attention to detail and painstaking scholarship. He has labored hard and thoughtfully for his reader. The documentation is so complete and the discussion of issues so thorough that the work takes on the character of a reference book. It is the sort of book one keeps handy on the shelf. It is document-driven and demanding of the reader, but the rewards are high. One acquires a deep understanding of U.S. policy toward the Panama Canal, particularly as it affected the defense of the waterway, the governance of the Canal Zone, and relations with the Republic of Panama." Charles D. Ameringer, The Americas
"This work is a jewel of information." Gustave Anguizola, Journal of American History
"The study is both informative and substantive and as such deserves inclusion on any short list of works dealing with the United States and Panama." Canadian Jrnl of Latin American & Caribbean Studies
"In reviewing this work, one must begin by congratulating John Major and thanking him for his attention to detail and painstaking scholarship. He has labored hard and thoughtfully for his reader. The documentation is so complete and the discussion of issues so thorough that the work takes on the character of a reference book. It is the sort of book one keeps handy on the shelf. It is document-driven and demanding of the reader, but the rewards are high. One acquires a deep understanding of U.S. policy toward the Panama Canal, particularly as it affected the defense of the waterway, the governance of the Canal Zone, and relations with the Republic of Panama." Charles D. Ameringer, The Americas
"This work is a jewel of information." Gustave Anguizola, Journal of American History
"The study is both informative and substantive and as such deserves inclusion on any short list of works dealing with the United States and Panama." Canadian Jrnl of Latin American & Caribbean Studies
Présentation de l'éditeur
Prize Possession is a history of United States policy towards the Panama Canal, focusing principally on the first two generations of American tenure of the Canal Zone between 1904 and 1955. John Major also provides an extensive look at the nineteenth-century background, the making of the 1903 canal treaty with Panama, the move after 1955 towards the new treaty settlement of 1977, and the crucial significance of the Canal to American policy-makers and their public. The book is based for the most part on the hitherto largely untapped sources of US government agencies, namely, the State, War, and Navy Department, and the Canal Zone administration, as well as on the papers of notable dramatis personae such as Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and Philippe Bunau-Varilla. As such it makes an important and original contribution to our knowledge and understanding of a subject which has not yet received its due from historians.
