his folklore interpretation. Indeed, he is quite forthright in saying that he came to the question in the early 1970s with an outlook shaped by the Vietnam-era antiwar movement (Immerman, 1982, p. ix). None the less, he presents an analysis of the 1954 coup and its surrounding context from what may be called a radical perspective, arguing that the interaction of internal Guatemalan social and political dynamics with U.S. Cold War policies--intermixed with an underlying stratum of racism--led the U.S. to intervene forcefully to eliminate a reformist government and ensure the continued dominance of a narrow ruling elite.
Immerman identifies the ultimate wellsprings of the Guatemalan crisis, quite reasonably, as lying within Guatemala itself. It was an ancient heartland of the Maya civilization, and the descendents of the Maya have for the most part never been assimilated into the Spanish-derived culture of Latin America. As a consequence, racial and cultural lines are more sharply drawn in Guatemala than in most Latin American societies. Instead of a complex gradation of status, there is a sharp demarcation betwee
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