A review by muccamukk
The Tango War: The Struggle for the Hearts, Minds and Riches of Latin America During World War II, by Mary Jo McConahay
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Pop history skimming the surface of a variety of topics centring on the subtitle, without looking too deeply into any of them. I felt like the book was trying to cover too much ground, but was generally educational as I knew very little beyond the resource extraction parts.
Topics covered included: cold war for rights to resource sales between Axis and Allied powers especially rubber and oil, various Latin American combat forces in the war, Jewish communities, American kidnapping and interning of Latin American citizens of German and Japanese decent (no one seemed to care about the Italians), internal political responses to fascism, fair bit of spy vs. spy stuff, u-boat wars, and the post-war ratline.
I appreciated that the author was so frank about American political meddling, and that the rise of dictatorships in the post-War era had more to do with that than with extra escaped Nazis kicking around. I'm not sure I'd rec this as an into over something about any one of the countries discussed, especially something by a Latin American author.
(It took me forever to realise that the title meant the Tango dance, not the letter T.)
Topics covered included: cold war for rights to resource sales between Axis and Allied powers especially rubber and oil, various Latin American combat forces in the war, Jewish communities, American kidnapping and interning of Latin American citizens of German and Japanese decent (no one seemed to care about the Italians), internal political responses to fascism, fair bit of spy vs. spy stuff, u-boat wars, and the post-war ratline.
I appreciated that the author was so frank about American political meddling, and that the rise of dictatorships in the post-War era had more to do with that than with extra escaped Nazis kicking around. I'm not sure I'd rec this as an into over something about any one of the countries discussed, especially something by a Latin American author.
(It took me forever to realise that the title meant the Tango dance, not the letter T.)