Talk of austerity packages is commonplace in 2012. But austerity is not new. As most readers will know, austerity packages – and associated “shock” measures to kick-start neoliberal economic reforms – have a longer history in Latin America, particularly when it comes to the rise of the so-called “Washington Consensus” in the 1980s and 1990s. What they may not realize is that the concept of structural adjustment programmes and austerity measures has an even longer history than this. As James Siekmeier argues in his book The Bolivian Revolution and the United States, 1952 to Present, their roots are to be found in the 1950s. Indeed, as he tells us, the reforms accepted by Bolivia's revolutionary leaders in 1956–57 was “the first instance in which the IMF applied an austerity/stabilization program in the Third World” (8).

Siekmeier examines why, how and with what consequences this 1956–57 stabilization package and subsequent free-market reforms were implemented in the context of a broader history of US–Bolivian relations following the Bolivian Revolution of 1952 – one of “the few truly social revolutions in recent Latin American history” (42). Ultimately, this is not a happy story. From the mid-1950s onwards, the Revolution fragmented and veered off course; reforms were abandoned; many of those who had initially supported the Revolution were isolated or, worse, fell victim to repressive efforts to curb labour movements; and Bolivia's leaders increasingly relied on the military to fight their battles. In this context, the stabilization plan was a pivotal part of how and why the Revolution unfolded, serving as a sober lesson to those who believe they can make nations from afar and tame revolutionary impulses. The warm relationship between Bolivia and the United States after the 1952 Revolution also ebbed and waned, never really reflecting the levels of commitment and aid that successive US administrations provided.

In telling this story, Siekmeier follows a broadly chronological structure in six chapters, beginning with the decades prior to the Revolution (as he persuasively insists, you cannot understand 1952 without grasping the history of Bolivia in the 1930s and 1940s); moving on to the Revolution itself and the United States’ support for its leaders; the Revolution's metamorphosis and betrayal as it accommodated Washington's free-market and anticommunist agenda; the militarization of politics and upheaval in the 1960s and early 1970s; the implications of the 1971 coup d’état that brought right-wing General Hugo Banzer to power; and the history of neoliberal economic reforms, indigenous radical movements and the cocaine trade that came to dominate US–Bolivian relations after democratization in the 1980s. Although the focus of the book is squarely on Bolivia and its foreign relations, Siekmeier also examines US perspectives at length, particularly when it comes to President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and Nixon's effort to improve relations between the United States and Latin America. Moreover, he provides an astute overview of Che Guevara's disastrous mission to Bolivia within the context of other guerrilla movements in Bolivia and throughout Latin America and efforts to combat them.

Overall, the book is excellent at explaining contemporary politics through an examination of history. Siekmeier makes the story of Bolivia's twentieth century immediately relevant for today's readers. He puts the election of Evo Morales in 2006 in context and engages readers by drawing their attention to the way in which Bolivia is imagined in popular culture today (the Bolivian plot line in the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace being just one example). These brief contextual passages in the book are valuable, and one can certainly imagine students who are sceptical of why Bolivia “matters” being drawn into its history as a result.

What they will find when they read on is that Bolivia mattered – and matters – a great deal. As Siekmeier shows us, it is a mistake to regard Bolivia as a South American backwater of limited relevance to regional and international affairs. Instead, drawing on declassified US, British and Bolivian documents, as well as an extensive reading of secondary literature, he puts forward the case that Bolivia was “a trailblazer” and a “test case in nation building” (178–79, 41, 84). It persistently charted the future direction of Latin America, from its espousal of economic nationalism in the 1930s to its embrace of free-market reforms later in the twentieth century; it was the embodiment of Third World revolutionary nationalism during the 1950s; and it was used as a “laboratory” for US policies to prevent “another Cuba” breaking out in the Third World during the Cold War (49). If Bolivia was allowed to descend into chaos and economic crisis, the thinking in Washington went, it would be a defeat for US experiments in developmental assistance and nation building, as well as a loss in the global Cold War. And, as a result, it was given an astonishing amount of economic and military assistance.

Siekmeier's effort to call readers’ attention to Bolivia is refreshing. His examination of Bolivia's regional and global context, together with the comparisons he makes between what is happening in Bolivia and what is happening elsewhere, are also welcome. From the perspective of Bolivia, for example, Siekmeier offers telling insights on the significance of the end of the Good Neighbour Policy for reformist governments in Latin America (61). The conclusion that the Bolivians drew from the Cuban Missile Crisis, namely that thereafter the Soviet Union would no longer play a significant role in the region and that it was therefore unwise to try and play the Cold War card to extract more assistance and support from the United States, is intriguing for understanding regional leaders’ options and priorities (98). When it comes to the Nixon administration's policy towards Latin America, he is also right to say that Chile has absorbed a disproportionate amount of scholars’ attention given the other upheavals that were going on at the same time (the expulsion of the Peace Corps from Bolivia being one example). Indeed, with some reason, Siekmeier argues that “the deterioration in U.S.–Bolivian relations was as dramatic as that of U.S.–Chilean relations under Allende” (126).

All told, in charting the history of Bolivia and US–Bolivian relations from the 1930s until the present, and explaining Bolivia's significance in a wider context, this is a useful and recommended book. Among the threads running through this book is the contention that instead of being an all-powerful puppet master in Latin America, the United States’ power to arrange Bolivian affairs was rather more limited than is commonly understood (1). We learn that Bolivian actors very often determined bilateral relations with Washington and even “manipulated” US officials to extract more aid and assistance (95). The figure of Bolivia's ambassador to Washington after 1952, Víctor Andrade, whose “herculean efforts” Siekmeier argues put Bolivia “on the map” for many in the US, stands out (68). We also learn of the many Bolivians who resisted US hegemony. As Siekmeier notes, this is what explains the establishment of the Katarista movement in the 1980s, cocalero organizations and Evo Morales's subsequent rise to power.

Given that Bolivia – and Bolivians – are explicitly at the centre of this book, I was therefore a little surprised by its stylish cover, which features portraits of Dwight Eisenhower and Che Guevara rather than Victor Paz Estenssoro or Víctor Andrade. However, this does not detract from the multilayered and insightful introduction into Bolivian history and Bolivians’ relations with the United States during the Cold War and after that the book offers. What Siekmeier is saying throughout is that Bolivia, its leaders and its population mattered, that they were not simply victims or Washington's subordinate dependents, but that the history of the Bolivian Revolution and its international relations evolved as a result of dynamic, fluid interactions. Certainly, the way in which Bolivia's Revolution evolved, the interaction of its leaders with their counterparts in Washington and the impact of hemispheric developments on Bolivia were far from foregone, structurally determined, conclusions when the Revolution took place in 1952.