Emperors in the Jungle is an exposé of key episodes in the military involvement of the United States in Panama. Investigative journalism at its best, this book reveals how U.S. ideas about taming tropical jungles and people, combined with commercial and military objectives, shaped more than a century of intervention and environmental engineering in a small, strategically located nation. Whether uncovering the U.S. Armyαs decades-long program of chemical weapons tests in Panama or recounting the invasion in December 1989 which was the U.S. militaryαs twentieth intervention in Panama since 1856, John Lindsay-Poland vividly portrays the extent and costs of U.S. involvement.

A platform for control : interventions and army doctors, 1856-1925 -- "Test tube island" -- The nuclear canal -- Playing the drug card -- The politics of environmental cover-up -- Market mania -- Continuity and change in the military's vision -- Afterword : knowing ourselves : exhortation to read a friendly text / by Guillermo Castro Herrera.