Product Description

In the mid-1930s the Mexican government expropriated millions of acres of land from hundreds of U.S. property owners as part of President Lzaro Crdenass land redistribution program. Because no compensation was provided to the Americans a serious crisis, which John J. Dwyer terms the agrarian dispute, ensued between the two countries. Dwyers nuanced analysis of this conflict at the local, regional, national, and international levels combines social, economic, political, and cultural history. He argues that the agrarian dispute inaugurated a new and improved era in bilateral relations because Mexican officials were able to negotiate a favorable settlement, and the United States, constrained economically and politically by the Great Depression, reacted to the crisis with unaccustomed restraint. Dwyer challenges prevailing arguments that Mexicos nationalization of the oil industry in 1938 was the first test of Franklin Roosevelts Good Neighbor policy by showing that the earlier conflict over land was the watershed event.