Robert Alexander, a long-time observer of Latin American politics and economics, has been an active correspondent with the key figures of the region for decades. In this volume, he provides interview transcripts and letters from nearly a score of the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. With some of the correspondence and interviews spread over a considerable length of time, the shifting views and attitudes as well as the comments on other key players makes for fascinating insights into the politics of change in Latin America.
Beginning with an introduction placing the various presidents in the context of their roles in the history of their respective countries, Alexander then presents materials dealing with and by the presidents of Argentina, then Brazil, and finally Chile. A selected bibliography provides guidance on the major writings on the figures covered, and a general subject index helps to point readers to the numerous interconnections contacted in the volume. Essential reading for students of 20th-century Latin American affairs, political, social, and economic.

The ABC Presidents: Conversations and Correspondence with the Presidents of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile

History

Alexander, Robert J.

Americas

Praeger

Alexander is among the most experienced observers of Latin American politics and has been an active correspondent with major figures of the region for decades. In this volume, he provides interview transcripts and letters from most of the recent presidents of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. With some of the correspondence and interviews extending over a considerable period of time, the shifting views and attitudes as well as the comments on other key players makes for fascinating insights into the politics of Latin America.This volume is a continuation of Alexander's earlier The ABC Presidents (Praeger, 1992). This material is of considerable importance to political scientists and other Latin American Studies researchers.

The Bolivarian Presidents: Conversations and Correspondence with Presidents of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela

With this volume, the eminent Latin Americanist Professor Robert J. Alexander concludes a five-volume collection of personal documents and conversations with the leaders of Latin America and the Caribbean. Compiled over a fifty year period, the volumes show major leaders as they envision strategies and future policies, explain their actions, and assess their contemporaries. These formal and informal statements provide insights into the workings of Latin American and Caribbean political parties and governments, and the views of their leaders.Alexander provides firsthand material on many of the most significant political leaders of the Caribbean since World War II, among them Norman and Michael Manley, Errol Barrow, Eric Williams, Cheddi Jagan, and Luis Munoz Marin. No student or researcher of the region should be without access to this and the earlier volumes in the series.

Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Governors of the English-Speaking Caribbean and Puerto Rico: Conversations and Correspondence

The Maoist movement was the most important dissident force within International Communism in the period following World War II. Based on first-hand observation as well as the scattered research on the Maoist movements, Alexander examines the circumstances that attracted people to the movement in each country and the evolution of the movement. Scholars and researchers interested in Marxism in the developing world will be able to trace the origins and fate of Maoist groups in Latin America, Albania, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

International Maoism in the Developing World

Business & Money

Economics

Robert J. Alexander traces organized labor from its origins in colonial Cuba, examining its evolution under the Republic, noting the successive political forces within it and the development of collective bargaining, culminating after 1959 in its transformation into a Stalin-model labor movement. In Castro's Cuba, organized labor has been subordinate to the Party and government and has been converted into a movement to control the workers and stimulate production and productivity instead of being a movement to defend the interests and desires of the workers.
Starting with the organization of tobacco workers and a few other groups in the last years of Spanish colonial rule, Robert J. Alexander traces the growth of the labor movement during the early decades of the republic, noting particularly the influence of three political tendencies: anarchosyndicalists, Marxists, and independents. He examines the generally unfavorable attitudes of early republican governments to the labor movement, and he discusses the first central labor body, the CNOC, which was at first under anarchist influence, and soon captured by the Communists. The role of the CNOC vis-á-vis the Machado dictatorship, including the deal with Machado in 1933 is also discussed. Alexander then looks at the unions during the short Grau San Martine nationalist regime of 1933 and the near-destruction of organized labor by the Batista dictatorship of 1934-1937; the revival of the labor movement after the 1937 deal of the Communists with Batista and the establishment of the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Cuba, as well as the struggles for power within it, resulting in a split in the CTC in 1947, with the dominance of the Autentico-party controlled group. During this period regular collective bargaining became more or less the rule. He then describes the deterioration of the Confederacion of Trabajadores de Cuba under the Batista dictatorship of 1952-1959. Alexander ends with a description of organized labor during the Castro regime: the early attempt of revolutionary trade unionists to establish an independent labor movement, followed by the Castro government's seizure of control of the CTC and its unions, and the conversion of the Cuban labor movement into one patterned after the Stalinist model of a movement designed to stimulate production and productivity―under government control―instead of defending the rights and interests of the unions' members.
Based on an extensive review of Cuban materials as well as Alexander's numerous interviews, correspondence, and conversations with key figures from the late 1940s onward, this is the most comprehensive English-language examination of organized labor in Cuba ever written. Essential reading for all scholars and students of Cuban and Latin American labor and economic affairs as well as important to political scientists and historians of the region.

A History of Organized Labor in Cuba

Alexander examines the history of the labor movement in Brazil during its two key phases. First, he looks at the origins and early development of the movement from the last decades of the 19th century until the Revolution of 1930. Then he analyzes the impact of the corporate state structure that President Getulio Vargas imposed on labor during his first tenure in power, and the continuation of that structure during most of the remainder of the century.Until 1930, the trajectory of the labor movement in Brazil was quite similar to what was happening in most of the rest of Latin America. Most of the early labor organizations were mutual-benefit societies rather than trade unions. This began to change in the early 1900s. From the onset, organized labor in Brazil was involved with politics, and organized labor had to deal not only with the opposition of employers, but also with that of successive conservative governments. All this changed with the ascent of Vargas to power in 1930. He sought to win the support of the urban working class, and with the coming of the New State in 1937, the government was deeply involved in the direction of union activities. After 1945, Brazilian labor was once more influenced by a variety of different political currents, and by the 1960s the labor movement began to extend into the rural sector of the economy. The Constitution of 1988 allowed workers to organize without government control and they won the right to strike. By 1990 the Brazilian labor movement had attained the structure and characteristics it would retain into the new century. A major resource for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with Brazilian labor, economic, and political affairs.

A History of Organized Labor in Brazil

The first scholarly work to focus exclusively on the roles of pan-regional and worldwide labor organizations in the labor movements across the nations of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.
 • Numerous original documents from the various organizations covered in the book
• Wide-ranging bibliographic materials, including original interviews by the author with numerous people who participated in the various institutions that are written about in this volume

International Labor Organizations and Organized Labor in Latin America and the Caribbean: A History

Parker, Eldon

This volume is a pioneering study of the history of organized labor in the Central American republics. It traces the history in the various countries from the early nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It also discusses why they appeared, what organizational and ideological tendencies characterized the movement in these countries, the role of collective bargaining, the economic influence of organized labor, as well as the relations of the movement in the individual countries with one another and with the broader labor movement outside of the countries involved in this volume.

A History of Organized Labor in Panama and Central America

This volume traces the history of organized labor in Peru and Ecuador from its first appearance in the late nineteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It discusses the relations of trade unionism with economic development and politics, particularly the political tendencies within organized labor. It also discusses the negative impact on the trade union movement of the free enterprise-free trade policies of the last decades of the twentieth century.

A History of Organized Labor in Peru and Ecuador

This volume deals with the history of organized labor in all of the countries of the English-speaking West Indies. It is the fourth in a series of histories of the organized labor movement in Latin America and the Caribbean. Alexander traces the countries' origins, early struggles, experiences with collective bargaining, and the key roles in the politics of their respective countries, particularly their participation in the struggle for self-government and independence. He also examines the international organizations of trade unions in the West Indian area, and their association with the hemisphere and worldwide labor groups.This work is based on the author's personal contacts with these labor movements and their leaders, as well as on printed material, including collective contracts, histories of some of the labor groups and other similar sources. Scholars and students of labor relations, economic and social development, and those interested in the history of the West Indies and Latin America will enjoy this book.

A History of Organized Labor in the English-Speaking West Indies

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