According to the Administration's A National Security Strategy for a New Century (May 1997), "Our hemisphere enters the twenty-first century with an unprecedented opportunity to build a future of stability and prosperity--building on the fact that every nation in the hemisphere except Cuba is democratic and committed to free market economies." Yet two textbooks commonly used for introductory college courses on Latin America present the region in 1998 as a revolutionary cauldron where democracy

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... s a sham, and where the people are pauperized by greedy US corporations and often murdered by huge US-trained armies. This fifth annual Parameters essay on the strategic literature on Latin America will examine the question of ideological interpretation.