Gibbs, David N. The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines,
Money, and U.S. Policy in the Congo Crisis. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1991. 322 pages.
This book is basically an excellent history of the Congo crisis. But
the author is an assistant professor of political science at the University
of Arizona, which means that there's a certain amount of academic baggage
in these pages. Gibbs is using the Congo intervention to show that other
schools of thought in international relations theory (national character,
pluralism, instrumental Marxism, structural Marxism, statism and realism,
and the bureaucratic model) do not explain the historical evidence as well
as the "business conflict" model that he proposes. In other words, national
interventionist policies tend to reflect competing business interests within
and between nations, even as politicians pretend that strategic interests
(such as anti-Communism) are paramount.
The crisis in the Congo has not received nearly as much attention as
some other interventions -- Guatemala in 1954, for example -- that might
confirm Gibbs' thesis. To his credit, he chose one that is not covered well
in the literature, and added to our knowledge by researching private
collections, obtaining 2,000 pages of government documents, and conducting
over 30 interviews.
ISBN 0-226-29071-9
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