Neoliberalism and Counterinsurgency

How did the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement come about? The officially named “U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement” was the stepchild of a rancorous hemispheric divorce between the United States and five Latin American governments over the proposal to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement...

The “Violencia” and Military Rule

What was the effect of Gaitán’s assassination? In the rioting that erupted after Gaitán’s assassination, an estimated 1,000 people were killed and more than 100 buildings in downtown Bogotá were firebombed and completely destroyed.1 The surging crowds first concentrated their attack on...

In Search of Peace

What happened to the peace accord between the FARC and the Colombian government? The national plebiscite to approve the peace treaty seemed like a shoo-in. On September 26, 2016, six days before the vote, in an atmosphere of national celebration, there was a theatrically-staged...

The Drug War I

How did the United States become the world’s leading drug consumer? Around the time America’s “addiction to coffee” propelled Colombia to become the world’s second-l eading producer of that stimulant in the late 19th century, the United States was already consuming record amounts of...

Introduction

In no more than 20 years during the first part of the 16th century, a few hundred Spanish conquistadores crushed three Indian empires, ultimately delivering 25 million new subjects from the New World to the Spanish king, along with a realm stretching...

“Good Neighbor,” The Nazi Threat, and Cold War “Armageddon”

What was America’s Good Neighbor policy? Washington’s closer ties to Bogotá were part of a broader U.S. effort throughout Latin America to be a “good neighbor,” something President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had promised in his inaugural speech in March 1933.1 FDR’s “radical...

Conservative Peace and the Liberal Republic

How did Colombia recover from the Thousand-Day War? Ruined and disgraced, Colombia somehow held a presidential election in 1904. Fortunately for the country, Conservative Rafael Reyes—a former general who had distinguished himself as Colombia’s leading diplomat at the turn of the century—prevailed. He proved...

Conquest and Colony

How did Spain conquer the New Kingdom of Granada? In the wake of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World in 1492, Spanish explorers began traveling to the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, looking for gold and slaves while continuing their quest to discover...

Plan Colombia

How did Plan Colombia come about? Writing in 2000, Stephen M. Walt identified the “central paradox” of America’s unchallenged global power as one in which the United States “enjoys enormous influence but has little idea what to do with its power or even how...

The Liberal Revolution and the Conservative “Regeneration”

What changes did independence bring? Independence had torn through Spanish America like a great storm, in the telling metaphor of John Lynch, “sweeping away the lines of attachment to Spain and the fabric of colonial government, but leaving intact the deeply rooted bases of...