At the Ninth International Conference of American States in 1948, twenty-one republics signed a charter creating the Organization of American States (OAS). In part, this act represented a name change. As early as 1889, the American republics had sent delegates to regular international meetings under the auspices of the Pan American Union (PAU). By 1920 the PAU, based in Washington, D.C., served as a forum for mediation of international disputes, promotion of international trade and finance, and discussion of pressing problems in international law. When delegates created the OAS, these PAU mandates were maintained, but the name of the new body was meant to signal a more activist agenda for its international diplomacy, on the model of the then newly created United Nations.
Over the forty-five years since its inception, the OAS has been at the forefront of Pacific settlement mediation in the Americas and has sponsored a variety of scientific and educational programs. From the 1954 coup d'etat in Guatemala, to the more recent events in Haiti, the OAS has helped chart the diplomatic climate hi the Western Hemisphere. The Organization of American States is the only comprehensive and thorough bibliography on the OAS. Chronologically organized, the chapters in this volume highlight the finest scholarship on the OAS in several disciplines. Its annotations are written by a scholar whose expertise is niter-American relations, and more specifically the history of the OAS.
The Organization of American States provides entries on the specific workings of the OAS and its bureaucracies, no less than an exploration of the importance of the OAS in a context of national and international literatures in many different disciplines. A strong grasp of the OAS and its functions is essential to any investigator wishing to understand inter-American affairs, as well as problems of modernization and development in the American republics. This volume will be an invaluable resource for policymakers, government officials, and students, scholars, and others interested hi inter-American relations.
