Prize Possession
The United States Government and the Panama Canal 1903–1979

A comprehensive history of US policy towards the Panama Canal between.

John Major (Author)

9780521521260, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 30 October 2003

456 pages, 6 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.66 kg

"The study is both informative and substantive and as such deserves inclusion on any short list of works dealing with the United States and Panama." Canadian Jrnl of Latin American & Caribbean Studies

Prize Possession is a history of United States policy towards the Panama Canal, focusing principally on the first two generations of American tenure of the Canal Zone between 1904 and 1955. John Major also provides an extensive look at the nineteenth-century background, the making of the 1903 canal treaty with Panama, the move after 1955 towards the new treaty settlement of 1977, and the crucial significance of the Canal to American policy-makers and their public. The book is based for the most part on the hitherto largely untapped sources of US government agencies, namely, the State, War, and Navy Department, and the Canal Zone administration, as well as on the papers of notable dramatis personae such as Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and Philippe Bunau-Varilla. As such it makes an important and original contribution to our knowledge and understanding of a subject which has not yet received its due from historians.

Preface and acknowledgments
Part I. Prelude: 1826–1904: 1. The quest for an American canal, 1826–1903
2. 'I took the isthmus', 1903–4
Part II. Beginnings: 1904–29: 3. The zone régime
4. The labour force
5. The Commissary
6. The protectorate
7. Canal defence
Part III. Transitions: 1930–55: 8. The zone régime
9. The labour force
10. The commissary
11. Partnership politics
12. Canal defence
Part IV. Recessional: 1956–79: 13. 'Mandate from civilization'?, Map of the Canal Zone
Appendices
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]