In this jewel of a book Frieden systematically compares how and why Latin America's five largest debtors-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela-differed in their approaches to development policy choices, paths of political development and responses to the debt crisis of the 1980s. Frieden argues that variations in official borrowing policies and responses to the termination of foreign credit are best explained by the impact of powerful domestic lobby groups pursuing their own concrete interests. Clear and cogent.