Tree of Hate: Propaganda and Prejudices Affecting United States Relations with the Hispanic World. PHILIP WAYNE POWELL: Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2008

Abstract

In Tree of Hate, Philip Wayne Powell purportedly intends to uproot the "tree of hate" which he argues has distorted relations between the United States and the Hispanic world. Yet the author displays a remarkable insensitivity to his own prejudices and distortions, which ultimately reduces his work to little more than a useless polemic.

When Powell first published the book in 1971, Latin America was undergoing a transformation from a mostly democratic region to one dominated by brutal tyrannies. Powell devotes little attention to this context. But it seems to provide the raison d'être for the book, as he plaintively urges the reader to overlook Franco's atrocities and those of Latin American governments as not reflective of true Spanish character.