Background Research

The original 1995 encyclopedia, an award winner from both the American Library Association (Dartmouth Certificate) and the American Historical Association, was celebrated as a landmark in the development of Latin American studies (The Americas). This new edition adds nearly 600 entirely new topics, replaces some 150 obsolete entries, and also provides substantial revisions to hundreds more. Every one of the 5,700+ entries has been reviewed for currency of content and bibliography. An entirely new illustration program features over 100 full-color photographs in addition to hundreds in black-and-white. National statistics have been conveniently tabulated for every one of Latin America's 37 countries. New content addresses research on prehistoric environments and cultures, U.S. Haitian interventions, the consequences of NAFTA and increased Mexican immigration, the troubled aftermaths of Pinochet's Chile and Fujimori's Peru, truth and reconciliation commissions, and the still-contested legacy of the Mexico City massacre of 1968. New leaders like Brazil's Lula da Silva and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez are profiled along with hundreds of other rising figures in politics, letters, and the arts. Newly commissioned master essays synthesize current knowledge on such major regional themes as Democracy in the Americas, Hemispheric Affairs, and the Hispanic Impact on the U.S. Includes full index and table of biographical subjects by profession. Edited by Jay Kinsbruner and an international team of consultants on three continents.

Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History brings together the most important documents on the history of the relationship between the United States and Latin America from the nineteenth century to the present. In addition to the standard diplomatic sources, the book includesdocuments touching on the transnational concerns that are increasingly taught in the classroom, including economic relations, environmental matters, immigration, human rights, and culture. Among the less frequently cited works reproduced here are Domingo Sarmiento's nineteenth-century reflection onlife in the United States, the Andrews Sisters' 1944 hit song, "Ru and Coca Cola," Jack Kerouac's beatnik observations on Mexico, the U.S. Senate's investigation of CIA assassination plots, and the World Court decision condemning the Reagan administration's Nicaragua policy. The collectionilluminates key issues while representing a variety of interests and views as they have both persisted and shifte over time, including often-overlooked Latin American perspectives and U.S. public opinion.A special feature of this book is the extensive introductions highlighting the historical context and significance of each of the 124 documents. A detailed index provides the thematic and national cross-referencing that both students and instructors will appreciate. Latin America and the UnitedStates: A Documentary History is an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses in Latin American history as well as in U.S.-Latin America relations. In addition, it serves as a unique reference tool for foreign policy professionals, international law specialists, journalists, and scholars ina variety of disciplines.

Now fully updated to 2009, this acclaimed history of Latin America tells its turbulent story from Columbus to Chavez. Beginning with the Spanish and Portugese conquests of the New World, it takes in centuries of upheaval, revolution and modernization up to the present day, looking in detail at Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Cuba, and gives an overview of the cultural developments that have made Latin America a source of fascination for the world. 'A first-rate work of history ... His cool, scholarly gaze and synthesizing intelligence demystify a part of the world peculiarly prone to myth-making ... This book covers an enormous amount of ground, geographically and culturally' Tony Gould, Independent on Sunday

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress, as exalted by widely taught formulations such as "manifest destiny" and "Jacksonian democracy," and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms American history into the story of the working class organizing against imperialism. In precise detail, Ortiz traces this untold history from the Jim Crow-esque racial segregation of the Southwest, the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, International Workers' Day, when migrant laborers--Chicana/os, Afro-Cubanos, and immigrants from nearly every continent on earth--united in resistance on the first "Day Without Immigrants." Incisive and timely, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a bottom-up history told from the viewpoint of African American and Latinx activists and revealing the radically different ways people of the diaspora addressed issues still plaguing the United States today.

From the influential work of Los Bros Hernandez in Love & Rockets, to comic strips and political cartoons, to traditional superheroes made nontraditional by means of racial and sexual identity (e.g., Miles Morales/Spider-Man), comics have become a vibrant medium to express Latino identity and culture. Indeed, Latino fiction and nonfiction narratives are rapidly proliferating in graphic media as diverse and varied in form and content as is the whole of Latino culture today. Graphic Borders presents the most thorough exploration of comics by and about Latinos currently available. Thirteen essays and one interview by eminent and rising scholars of comics bring to life this exciting graphic genre that conveys the distinctive and wide-ranging experiences of Latinos in the United States. The contributors' exhilarating excavations delve into the following areas: comics created by Latinos that push the boundaries of generic conventions; Latino comic book author-artists who complicate issues of race and gender through their careful reconfigurations of the body; comic strips; Latino superheroes in mainstream comics; and the complex ways that Latino superheroes are created and consumed within larger popular cultural trends. Taken as a whole, the book unveils the resplendent riches of comics by and about Latinos and proves that there are no limits to the ways in which Latinos can be represented and imagined in the world of comics.

Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States and will comprise a quarter of the country's population by mid-century. This landmark book is the most definitive and comprehensive snapshot available of this trend. A new preface includes the most recent data on a variety of indicators of the changing Latino landscape in the United States. Copub: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies