Consortia



Warren I. Cohen

As generally found in world affairs, consortia are multinational cooperative ventures designed to cope with some common problem, ostensibly apolitical. The best-known consortia, the socalled China consortiums, were banking syndicates—combinations of banking groups from several countries. Lacking adequate capital for export, the United States did not serve as a lender in international financial operations until the twentieth century. When it did begin to take part, American bankers proved to be imperfect instruments for national policy.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Borg, Dorothy. The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933–1938: From the Manchurian Incident Through the Initial Stage of the Undeclared Sino-Japanese War. Cambridge, Mass., 1964. Contains an account of Hornbeck's views and of the fate of the second consortium during the 1930s.

Cohen, Warren I. "America's New Order in East Asia: The Four Power Financial Consortium and China, 1919–1946." In Kwan Wai So and Warren I. Cohen, eds. Essays in the History of China and Chinese-American Relations. East Lansing, Mich., 1982. The most comprehensive account of the second consortium.

Curry, Roy W. Woodrow Wilson and Far Eastern Policy, 1913–1921. New York, 1957. Describes Wilson's initial attitude toward the American group and explains the Wilson administration's decision to create a new consortium.

Field, Frederick V. American Participation in the China Consortiums. Chicago, 1931. A clear and detailed description of both the old and new consortiums. The analysis of the problems of the old consortium is superior to the discussion of the new consortium; in the latter case, Field relied too heavily on Lamont for information.

Hoff, Joan. American Business and Foreign Policy, 1920–1933. Lexington, Ky., 1971. Provides a useful context for the workings of the second consortium and the ICBM, but Hoff did not have access to the Lamont papers.

Lamont, Thomas W. Across World Frontiers. New York, 1951. A charming but unreliable account.

Lewis, John P., and Richard Webb. The World Bank: Its First Half Century. Washington, D.C., 1997. The best starting point for examining the bank's work.

Porter, David. U.S. Economic Foreign Aid: A Case Study of the United States Agency for International Development. New York, 1990. Demonstrates how the agency functions.

Schmitt, Karl M. Mexico and the United States, 1821–1973: Conflict and Coexistence. New York, 1974. Includes reference to the International Committee of Bankers on Mexico in a chapter devoted to land and oil controversies.

Scholes, Walter V., and Marie V. Scholes. The Foreign Policies of the Taft Administration. Columbia, Mo., 1970. Contains an excellent discussion of the workings of the first consortium, based on multi-archival research. It is also important for the context of Taft's East Asian offensive.

Smith, Robert F. The United States and Revolutionary Nationalism in Mexico, 1916–1932. Chicago, 1972. Provides a thoughtful analysis of the problems of a less-developed country in a world in which international law is interpreted by advanced capitalist countries. Smith effectively uses the Lamont papers.

See also Dollar Diplomacy ; Economic Policy and Theory ; Wilsonianism .



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