This book contains fifteen essays by distinguished U.S., Latin American, and European scholars on each of these issues, framed by overviews of the changing historical context from the nineteenth century to the end of the Cold War.

The United States and Latin America in the long run (1800-1945) /James Dunkerley -- US-Latin American relations during the Cold War and its aftermath / Jorge I. Domínguez -- The European Union and the Americas / Laurence Whitehead -- Trade relations in the Americas : MERCOSUR, the free trade area of the Americas and the European Union / Victor Bulmer-Thomas and Sheila Page -- Trade, investment and NAFTA : the economics of neighborhood / E.V.K. Fitzgerald -- United States foreign relations and the promotion of democracy in Latin America / Rodolfo Cerdas Cruz -- The United States and democracy in Mexico / John H. Coatsworth -- Hooked on drugs : Colombian-US relations / Roberto Steiner -- The United States and Bolivia : fighting the drug war / Eduardo A. Gamarra -- Packaging drugs : certification and the acquisition of leverage / Elizabeth Joyce -- Latin American immigration to the United States / Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco -- Cuba's economic transformation and conflict with the United States / Juan Triana Cordovi -- The Cuban external sector in the 1990s / Jorge F. Pérez-López -- The politics of the Cuban diaspora in the United States / Maxine Molyneaux.