U.S. Intervention in British Guiana

“This cautionary tale constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of major power intervention in Latin America and the rest of the world.” — Hispanic American Historical Review

“Rabe has succeeded in artfully weaving a narrative that almost seamlessly balances a number of separate and complex conflicts. . . . Deserves to be, and should become, the standard text for the U.S. subversion of British Guiana for the foreseeable future.” — Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe

“A deeply engaging, lucid, and superb book. . . . The most complete account to date of what actually took place in British Guiana. . . . [Rabe’s] research is meticulous; his factual presentation is flawless . . . his judgment is on the mark.” — Journal of Cold War Studies

“A definitive and innovative analysis. . . . Rabe has found a rich and more complicated history of repeated and persistent US interventions in Guyana between 1953 and 1969 that has remained largely unknown.” — International History Review

“A highly instructive history of an important and tragic place in Cold War history. Rabe’s introduction of newly released documents will no doubt spark other scholars' interest in expanding and exploring new facets of this story.” — American Historical Review

“[U.S. Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story] makes an important contribution to the historical scholarship on British Guiana’s (Guyana) struggle for independence. It should appeal to college students, scholars, government officials and others with an interest in Guyana and the Cold War.” — The Americas

“Rabe manages to drive home the pathos of Guyana’s political history from the 1950s to the 1990s and in particular to reveal the heavy price the Guyanese people paid as hapless victims of America’s Cold War.” — Journal of American History

“An important addition to the growing number of scholarly works on Guyana.” — H-Caribbean

“Rabe skillfully analyzes the mix of racial, geopolitical, developmental, and sexual assumptions out of which American strategists drew their tragic misinterpretations of Guianese events. . . . As Rabe shows, cultural preconceptions shaped policy as much, or more, than economic or political interests. Rabe has recovered a crucial episode in the cold war and interpreted it with verve and sophistication.” — Nick Cullather, Indiana University

“With persistent and thorough research, Stephen Rabe uncovers a story the Central Intelligence Agency didn’t want the public to know. The Agency systematically burned its documents on British Guiana, but it couldn’t remove traces that remained in British archives, the records of labor unions, and in private hands. Its broad outline is all too familiar. . . . Policymakers from the Pentagon to the Green Zone should take note of Guiana’s lesson: that 'regime change' can turn easily and disastrously into ethnic warfare.” — Nick Cullather