Us-Guatemalan Petro-Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century: The Blackest Gold

By: Balzano, Richard M.

Between 1975 and 1983, Guatemala's hydrocarbon development became deeply entangled with state-led violence during the country's civil war. The United States' efforts to secure favorable access to Guatemalan oil intersected with-and in some cases redirected-the trajectory of U.S. foreign assistance and human rights policy.

In the first book on U.S.-Guatemalan hydrocarbon relations, Richard M. Balzano exposes the arms-for-aid diplomacy and duplicity in the Reagan administration, who actively supported the Guatemalan government as they inflicted violence on their own citizens. US-Guatemalan Petro-Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century makes several original contributions to the existing scholarship on Guatemalan energy development and inter-American resource imperialism. Balzano challenges the notion that Guatemala was a peripheral concern in Reagan's Cold War strategy in Central America, arguing instead that it played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. regional policy.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GLZYNWK9
• ISBN13: 9798216396956
• Release Date: March 2027
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"