Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

This is a compendium of descriptive and interpretive material on the history of Latin America, organized around coherent themes and periods commonly of interest to Latin Americanist scholars and their students, as well as the interested public. The essays are supported by the latest research, assessed and synthesized by trained and experienced specialists, and presented in a sequence organized thematically and chronologically. The standard meta-narrative for the region as a whole is represgented here, with considerable illustrative material and case studies ranging widely in time, space, and theme; they are accompanied by more than 1400 bibliographical references and suggestions for further reading, grouped at the end of each thematic essay. The chronologically organized units in that overarching timeline include the indigenous and Iberian backgrounds, conquest and colonization, the process of independence, the establishment of new nations in the nineteenth century, the varied processes by which the region modernized and developed through the twentieth century. It is also common in surveys of Latin American history to focus specifically on several case studies of major transformation, such as the Revolutions in Mexico and Cuba; to consider the emergence of the United States as a dominant presence in the economic and political affairs of the region; and to focus on other issues better ... log in or subscribe to read full text