Latin America A New Interpretation

This book of collected essays by Laurence Whitehead, an eminent scholar of Latin America, explores the structures and influences that bind together the region, shedding light on this vast and rapidly changing culture zone.

"Revised and expanded third edition"--Cover.

Problems in Modern Latin American History: A Reader is the long-awaited successor to Joseph S. Tulchin's Problems in Latin American History, which was published more than twenty years ago and has been out of print for ten. Realizing how the field has changed in the past two decades, Professors Chasteen and Tulchin have compiled a work that addresses new topics and issues to serve both faculty and students alike.p The authors examine nine problems in modern Latin America-issues that complement most survey texts and create geographical and chronological spans maximizing the book's applicability to various classroom needs. Each of the book's nine chapters, compiled by an expert in the field, begins with an introduction that provides an overview of the problem to be examined.p

This book highlights the necessity of analyzing Latin American society and politics within broad comparative frameworks. It explores methodological strategies for regional comparison and offers new approaches to the study of women, state power, corporatism, and political culture.

The question of development is a major topic in courses across the social sciences and history, particularly those focused on Latin America. Many scholars and instructors have tried to pinpoint, explain, and define the problem of underdevelopment in the region. With new ideas have come new strategies that by and large have failed to explain or reduce income disparity and relieve poverty in the region. Why Latin American Nations Fail brings together leading Latin Americanists from several disciplines to address the topic of how and why contemporary development strategies have failed to curb rampant poverty and underdevelopment throughout the region. Given the dramatic political turns in contemporary Latin America, this book offers a much-needed explanation and analysis of the factors that are key to making sense of development today.

Contemporary Latin America presents the epochal political, economic, social, and cultural changes in Latin America over the last 40 years and comprehensively examines their impact on life in the region, and beyond. Provides a fresh approach and a new interpretation of the seismic changes of the last 40 years in Latin America Introduces major themes from a humanistic and universal perspective, putting each subject in a context that readers can understand and relate to Focuses on ‘Ibero-America'--Brazil and the eighteen countries that were formerly Spanish possessions- while offering valuable comparative views of the non-Iberian areas of the Caribbean Emphasizes the global, regional and national dimensions of the region's recent past

This volume explores several notable themes related to foreign affairs in Latin America and the reconfiguration of the power of the different states in the region. It offers insightful historical perspectives for understanding national, regional and global issues from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, from analysis of the traditional "hegemony" of the United States over Latin America through its military, and political influence due to the presence of the European Union, Russia, and China. These views cannot be reduced to a simplistic vision of the dominant and subordinate; rather, they attempt to seek lines of continuity by highlighting traditional interpretations of new scenarios such as regional trading and security blocs. The volume refuses to impose a traditional and uncritical linear historical narrative onto the reader but instead proposes an alternative interpretation of the past and its relation to the present. Finally, the growing importance of international mechanisms in enabling the success of certain Latin American regimes is also highlighted, in particular the influence of regional diffusion through international organizations or other networks.