John A. Britton, author of several monographs on United States press coverage of Latin America in the late nineteenth century, describes the creation of a new international information system and its impact upon diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere. In the 1860s and 1870s, undersea telegraphic cables were strung between Europe, North America, and South America, facilitating the gathering of commercial and journalistic information, the exchange of diplomatic notes, and the dispatching of military orders between continents in hours rather than weeks. In the 1880s and 1890s, U.S. newspapers began to achieve mass circulation through faster printing speeds, banner headlines, bold illustrations, advertising revenues, and personalized, human-interest coverage, acquiring both means and motives to get hold of varied and exciting stories from distant points. Finally, partisans and promoters, and reporters and commanders stimulated further interest in overseas events through cheaply published magazines and memoirs, pamphlets, and photographs.

Britton argues that this new information system accelerated the tempo of news coverage of foreign affairs and broadened the U.S. audience for such coverage both geographically and sociologically. It also intensified public interest in foreign events by emphasizing dramatic confrontations, heroic actions, and the inevitability of U.S. expansion. Originally celebrated for its potential to improve understanding between nations, the information system could lend itself to the dissemination of inaccurate, spotty, sensationalist, or slanted coverage of foreign affairs, which could complicate rather than facilitate traditional diplomacy.

In over a dozen carefully narrated case studies of the conjunctions of telegraphy, journalism, and statecraft, Britton illustrates how Europeans, Americans, and Latin Americans tried to exploit the information system for their own ends. Diplomatists often enjoyed the cooperation of journalists and businessmen in acquiring the swiftest information. Presidential administrations used the cable network to dispatch gunboats for the protection of U.S. lives and property abroad and to issue tight deadlines for ultimatums that pressured foreign powers into apologies, indemnities, and arbitrations. Many branches of government took an interest in public relations, distributing statements to the press and monitoring editorial reactions. But the information system was also open to other players. Spokesmen for Venezuela, Chile, Mexico, Cuban patriots, and the Panama Canal Company were all able to inject their views into the U.S. press, whipping editors into furies against London or Madrid, Lima or Bogotá. And disruption, censorship, brevity, error, and backlash could throw the best-orchestrated plans into disarray.

Ultimately, Britton argues, the acceleration, intensification, and diffusion of foreign news slipped beyond the control of traditional Atlantic elites—businessmen, statesmen, and diplomats. Despite the geographic and political diversity of U.S. dailies, the efforts of editors to appeal to mass audiences produced startlingly homogenous accounts of and commentaries on the role of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. These tapped into the jingoistic, masculine, and aggressive currents of U.S. popular culture to stress the Monroe Doctrine as a justification for U.S. hegemony in the Americas, and military confrontation as the solution to international conflicts. Quoting the frequent surprise and dismay of statesmen at the inaccuracy and jingoism of the “hysterical” or “delirious” U.S. press, Britton concludes that traditional elites proved unable to keep pace with the rapid dissemination of news, and the passions of a new, excitable mass audience for foreign affairs. And because that audience had voting power, U.S. administrations were pressured into adjusting their policies, finding it “difficult if not impossible to pursue their goals in environments shaped by such spontaneous outbursts” (p. 326).

Yet the careful detail with which Britton constructs his narratives may undermine his bold conclusions about the imperialist inclination of the U.S. press and its impact on diplomacy. He describes several efforts to spark patriotic blazes that failed to spread beyond the papers of William Randolph Hearst. He notes the fierce debate over the annexation of the Philippines and points out that Theodore Roosevelt's secretive acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903 touched off a storm of criticism across a broad spectrum of the press.

Britton's strongest case for the influence of a media frenzy upon policy is the decision of Republican congressmen to reject President William McKinley's efforts at diplomacy with Spain in early 1898, fearful of punishment in the impending congressional elections. But Britton acknowledges that references by politicians to the force of public opinion and its capacity to limit diplomatic options were often tactical, justifying entrenchment in positions they already favored. Indeed, in virtually every case that Britton describes, cool heads prevailed, and the U.S. administration retained control over the situation to achieve its ends, in most instances without the use of force. Britton concedes that in no case can rapid telegraphy or jingoistic journalism be singled out as uniquely determinative of the outcome of a crisis. Nor can it be proven that the press was solely responsible for elevating a particular crisis to a matter of nationwide importance. As Britton's thoughtful historiographic overviews make clear, in the last third of the nineteenth century, U.S. investment in Latin American mines, plantations, and railways expanded dramatically. And an aggressive, outward-looking foreign policy became a unifying force for a nation recently sundered by the Civil War. Rather than the U.S. national press being at odds with traditional business and official elites, their interests in Latin America appear to have been closely aligned.