You are learning about U.S. imperialism in the 20th century in the book Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer.
Informal empire is different from territorial empire like the Roman or British empires in which one country directly ruled over other parts of the world. Informal imperialism involves the exercise of U.S. economic and military power to shape the internal affairs of other countries to benefit U.S. interests. The U.S. has mostly exercised such imperial power in the less-developed countries of Latin America & the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. U.S. interventions in these countries include: political and economic means to destabilize foreign governments; supporting armed rebels and overthrows of governments; and full-scale military invasions. But the U.S. has also supported friendly governments (sometimes called client-states) with economic and military aid, including many undemocratic, repressive dictatorships.
You will write a 5-paragraph essay about U.S. imperialism in one specific country during the 20th century. You will choose a less-developed country in one of the above-mentioned regions that you either have an interest in or that you think will be a good example of U.S. imperialism. You will identify and explain three different examples of U.S. imperialism in that country during the 20th century (since the Spanish-American War). You will argue in your thesis statement that, based on your examples, the U.S. has had an overall positive, negative, or mixed (some positive, some negative) impact on the country during the 20th century.
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