Overtaken by Events: The Dominican Crisis--from the Fall of Trujillo to the Civil War

xiv, 821 pp. "The narrative unrolls against a background of violence and subversion, of rioting in the streets and the non-stop intrigues of Caribbean politics behind the scenes. Martin tells what it is like to be an ambassador when the going gets tough--what actually goes on in an embassy, how the military and the spies and the economists and the American business men operate, when American power can be brought to bear and when it can't. His book defines the complexity and confusion of one of the central crises of modern times: the increasingly decisive and yet precarious position of the United States in Latin America--and, by implication, in any part of the world where nations newly freed are fighting to survive."--jacket