The Dominican Republic (1986) places the nation’s economic and political crises into perspective. As a dependent state, the Dominican Republic benefitted little from its abundant natural resources – important decisions concerning land use, resource exploitation and levels of sophistication have been made beyond the country’s borders since the turn of the twentieth century and with little regard for the nation’s people. As a country it is reliant on markets and prices it cannot control, loans it cannot repay and imported food it cannot afford. This book analyses the twenty years of promising developments from the mid-Sixties, and addresses the political tension generated by the contradictory demands of the country’s own impoverished population and of representatives of US political, military and economic interests.