Since the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, in which the United States vowed to prevent further European interference in the Western Hemisphere, the American military ever increasingly involved itself in the internal affairs of its Latin American neighbors. This book considers nearly 150 years of U.S. military intervention in Latin America, from naval patrols near turbulent Spanish colonies in the early 1800s, to the protection of U.S. interests during Caribbean rebellions at the beginning of the 1900s, to later actions in Panama, Honduras, Cuba and Nicaragua.

With short chronicles of U.S. involvement country by country--from Argentina to Uruguay--and appendices providing biographies of major military commanders, and lists of servicemen decorated, injured or killed during various campaigns, this work highlights the complicated history between the United States and its neighbors to the South.