Amazon.com
Made up of 20 very different countries, Latin America has sometimes been treated as though it were a homogeneous unit, one mired in poverty and political instability. University of North Carolina scholar John Charles Chasteen's sweeping history of the region imparts a sense of how diverse--ethnically, linguistically, culturally--Latin America truly is, and of how that part of the world is rapidly changing, mostly for the better. (For example, he writes, "in 1980 most governments of the region were dictatorships of various descriptions. In 2000, elected governments rule almost everywhere.")
Chasteen observes that, although Latin America came into being under the imperial aegis of a few European powers, principally Spain and Portugal, it quickly branched into sometimes conflicting regions with widely differing ideas of economic development and government. He goes on to examine the careers of some of Latin America's most important historical figures, among them Simon Bolivar, who spread a revolutionary gospel of independence throughout the hemisphere, and Lázaro Cárdenas, the Mexican president who, in 1938, nationalized the oil industry and set his nation on a difficult course toward economic self-government. Of particular interest is Chasteen's consideration of the many reasons Latin American governments have clashed with that of the United States--among them disenchantment over the 1947 Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Germany at enormous cost, while offering almost no assistance to needy Latin American allies.
Designed as an undergraduate textbook, Chasteen's survey offers a useful overview of a region that, although of growing importance in world affairs, remains little understood. --Gregory McNamee
From Publishers Weekly
In a history that is concise yet satisfying, Chasteen, a historian at UNC-Chapel Hill, looks at critical Latin American events ranging from the original encounter of Europeans with the indigenous peoples of Latin America to the present day destruction of the Amazonian rain forest. He offers portraits of such well-known figures as Sim¢n Bol¡var, Jos‚ de San Mart¡n and August¡n Iturbide, as well as lesser-known ones such as Canek, a Yucatec Maya who led a short but important revolt against Spanish rule in Mexico in 1761. Chasteen focuses on major political, social and economic topics and trends that helped shape Latin America, including liberalism, the caste system, the mixing of races, nationalism and the Western notion of "Progress"; he also examines the role that Europe and the United States played in the development of these phenomena. Also refreshing is Chasteen's examination of the periods he covers from the perspective of women; he refers to many who played a central role, such as the celebrated Sister Juana In‚s de la Cruz and Juana Azurduy, as well as less popular Gertrudis Bocanegra, a Mexican woman who was executed for carrying messages to the Patriots. From the glorious and bloody battles for independence, through the trying periods of post- and neocolonialism, the finding of "national" identity and the more recent anti-Communist dictatorships from the 1960s to the 1980, to hope for a future of true democracy, this is a comprehensive and illuminating history.
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