Despite the various policy approaches tried over the years, the essential problem of the Latin American debt remains unabated - that financing the debts' burden impairs the developmental efforts of the region. This book argues that emphasis should be made towards a recognition of debt impact.

This book, first published in 1993, closely examines the United States government’s policy toward the Latin American debt crisis in the years 1982 to 1985. The United States under Reagan sought to maintain the problem as strictly a private creditor/debtor issue, and avoided the internationalization of the problem. With the election of Bush, however, government policy changed in 1989, and this book analyses the different approaches of both administrations, the successes and failures of their policies, and the eventual resolution of the debt crisis.

This book analyzes a neglected but fascinating chapter in Anglo-Latin American relations, the disastrous 1822-25 investment boom. During this brief period, British investors lost £21 million in defaulted Latin America as an area for capital investment for a generation. Today Latin America owes its banking and other anxious international creditors over $400 billion, and amount that is unlikely to be repaid. Valuable lessons can be learned by studying the nineteenth-century antecedents of the current situation. Frank Griffith Dawson explores in depth the origins and consequences of the first Latin American debt crisis, interweaving economic details with the broader historical context of society, government, and diplomacy of the period. His wide-ranging discussion includes descriptions of the vicissitudes of the loans, bond issues, and speculative ventures in mining and agriculture, life styles of the various Latin American agents who were empowered to negotiate loans for the new states, the sometimes dishonest British banking and stock broking figured involved in the transactions, and the unfailing gullibility of the investing public. Dawson’s saga sheds light not only capital-exporting nation, but also on a London, when its institutions first began wholeheartedly to adapt themselves to their roles as the financial arbiters of the world. This readable and entertaining book will be of interest to students of Latin American and European economic history. It will also be instructive reading to politicians, stockbrokers, bankers, and lawyers who are attempting to deal with the consequences of the latest Latin American lending boom.