The United Fruit Company (UFCO) developed an unprecedented relationship with Guatemala in the first half of this century. By 1944, UFCO owned 566,000 acres, employed 20,000 people, and operated 96% of Guatemala's 719 miles of railroad, making the multinational corporation Guatemala's largest private landowner and biggest employer. In Doing Business with the Dictators, Paul J. Dosal shows how UFCO built up a profitable corporation in a country whose political system was known to be corrupt. His work is based largely on research of company documents recently acquired from the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act-no other historian researching this topic has looked at these sources. As a result, Dr. Dosal is able to offer the first documentary evidence of how UFCO acquired, defended, and exploited its Guatemalan properties by collaborating with successive authoritarian regimes.

Paul J. Dosal is assistant professor of Latin American history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Chapter 1 AcknowledgmentsChapter 2 Figures and MapsChapter 3 IntroductionChapter 4 The Liberals Lay the FoundationsChapter 5 An Empire Is BornChapter 6 Minor Keith and Caudillo PoliticsChapter 7 United Fruit, Cuyamel, and the Battle for Motagua,Chapter IChapter 8 The Democratic InterludeChapter 9 The Puerto Barrios StrikeChapter 10 The Battle for Motagua,Chapter IIChapter 11 Expansion to the PacificChapter 12 The OctopusChapter 13 The United States versus United FruitChapter 14 Epilogue