The Latin American Military Establishment: Some Thoughts on the Origins of its Socio-Political Role and an Illustrative Bibliographical Essay *
Historians from the United States have studied the Latin American military using two principal approaches: in broad, topical studies dealing with the socio-political role of the military, i.e. armies, from colonial times to the present and in monographic works dealing thematically with the political role of the military in a specific country during a specific time. Neither approach boasts a defintive work. Certainly not the former, for the role of the Latin American military is simply too big to be dealt with between the covers of a single volume; nor the latter, because of the necessary exclusivism inherent in dealing with one nation-one period. A third approach, the multinational treatment of the military in Latin America during a fixed period exists, but to date few such works are in print.