Over the past two decades diplomatic historians have been studying U.S. development efforts in the Cold War, and an exciting new monograph on the subject seems to appear almost every year. Works by scholars such as Nils Gilman, Michael Latham, Nick Cullather, Corinna Unger, and David Ekbladh have elucidated the links between U.S. global ambitions and official aid programs from the optimistic 1950s through the 1970s and beyond the Cold War era. Their works in turn have helped inform larger books in the field, such as Odd Arne Westad's Global Cold War: Cold War Interventions and the Making of Our Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); as well as the approach of scholars looking at bilateral relations, such as Thomas Field in From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014).
Daniel Immerwahr's outstanding new monograph engages with...