Title The business of empire : United Fruit, race, and U.S. expansion in Central America / Jason M. Colby

Published Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2011

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Description 1 online resource : illustrations, maps Series The United States in the world United States in the world. Contents Enterprise and expansion, 1848-1885 -- Joining the imperial world, 1885-1904 -- Corporate colonialism, 1904-1912 -- Divided workers, 1912-1921 -- The rise of Hispanic nationalism, 1921-1929 -- Reframing the empire, 1929-1940 Summary The link between private corporations and U.S. world power has a much longer history than most people realize. Transnational firms such as the United Fruit Company represent an earlier stage of the economic and cultural globalization now taking place throughout the world. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources in the United States, Great Britain, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, Colby combines "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to provide new insight into the role of transnational capital, labor migration, and racial nationalism in shaping U.S. expansion into Central America and the greater Caribbean. The Business of Empire places corporate power and local context at the heart of U.S. imperial history. In the early twentieth century, U.S. influence in Central America came primarily in the form of private enterprise, above all United Fruit. Founded amid the U.S. leap into overseas empire, the company initially depended upon British West Indian laborers. When its black workforce resisted white American authority, the firm adopted a strategy of labor division by recruiting Hispanic migrants. This labor system drew the company into increased conflict with its host nations, as Central American nationalists denounced not only U.S. military interventions in the region but also American employment of black immigrants. By the 1930s, just as Washington renounced military intervention in Latin America, United Fruit pursued its own Good Neighbor Policy, which brought a reduction in its corporate colonial power and a ban on the hiring of black immigrants. The end of the company's system of labor division in turn pointed the way to the transformation of United Fruit as well as the broader U.S. empire. -- Book jacket Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 250-275) Notes English Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (Site, viewed 12/09/2020) Subject United Fruit Company -- History SUBJECT United Fruit Company fast Subject Industrial relations -- Central America -- History HISTORY -- United States -- 20th Century. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Government -- International. POLITICAL SCIENCE -- International Relations -- General. Commerce Industrial relations Diplomatic relations Race relations SUBJECT Central America -- Foreign relations -- United States United States -- Foreign relations -- Central America Central America -- Commerce -- United States -- History United States -- Commerce -- Central America -- History Central America -- Race relations -- History Subject Central America United States Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2019724663 ISBN 9780801462726 080146272X 9780801462719 0801462711 0801478995 9780801478994

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