Major, Prize Possession, PANAMA CANAL, united states

Prize Possession; The United States and the Panama Canal 1903-1979
by
John Major

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 DETAILS: (Cambridge): University of Cambridge, 1993. First edition. Original black cloth binding with silver-stamped lettering and dustjacket. xviii, 432pp. 6 b/w photographs within the text, 1 b/w map within the text. Size: 8vo - 6.25in (15.9cm) by 9.5in (24cm) (standard sized book).

CONDITION: Near Fine/Near Fine (book/jacket - see table below for details). Very slight edgewear to jacket. Dirt mark to fore edge. Pages clean. A solid copy. *Photo(s) given of actual book.

CONTENTS: The book forms a comprehensive history of U.S. policy towards the Panama Canal between 1903 and 1979, focussing on five salient themes: the canal's defence and its place in American strategy; the Zone's regimental system of government; its commercial development at the expense of Panama; and the equally controversial issue of U.S. intervention in Panamanian politics.

Major also provides an extensive look at the nineteenth-century background and the making of the 1903 canal treaty with Panama, and the significance of the canal to American policy-makers and their public.

The book is based for the most part on hitherto largely untapped sources of U.S. government agencies, namely the State, War, and Navy departments and the Canal Zone administration, as well as on the papers of such key figures as Phillipe Bunau-Varilla, General George Goethals, and Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, "making an important and original contribution to the understanding of a subject that has yet to receive its due from historians."