BOOTH, WILLIAM ALEXANDER
Lecturer @ Latin American History at University College London
Bio
William Booth is a lecturer in Latin American History at University College London. He is the author of ‘Rethinking Latin America's Cold War’ (Historical Journal) and ‘Hegemonic Nationalism, Subordinate Marxism’ (Journal of Latin American Studies). His monograph, A Prehistory of Revolution, is forthcoming with Verso
Geographical location :
Research Area and Interest :
Social Media
Panel
Labour and governance
Presentation
Regional? Hemispheric? Global? Assigning Scales of Analysis to Cold War Conflicts
This paper will consider contrasts, commonalities, and the benefits (and dangers) of 'grouping' of certain historical events. Using the author's 'layered stack of conflicts' published elsewhere with attention to Latin America, this paper will turn its attention to three Cold War interventions: the 1953 Coup in Iran, the 1953 Coup in Guyana, and the 1954 Coup in Guatemala. Do the local specificities of these processes preclude us from assigning them to regional, hemispheric, or global patterns? The nature of the threats posed to local and international elites – whether political, economic, or clerical – by Mossadegh, Jagan, and Arbenz (as well as their wider movements) will be presented in support of 'zooming out' in search of patterns which exist beyond the local.